UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


-ERSITY  61  - 
AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
UBRARY 


M 

- 

. 


TRANSACTIONS  OF  THE 

CONNECTICUT  ACADEMY  OF  ARTS  AND  SCIENCES 


INCORPORATED  A.  D.  1799 


VOLUME  17,  PAGES  1«-211 


JULY,  1912 


The  Authorship  of  the 

Second  and  Third  Parts 

of  " King  Henry  VI" 


BY 


C.    F.  TUCKER  BROOKE,  M.  A.,  B.  LITT. 

INSTRUCTOR   IN    ENGLISH    AT    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


Jf 


THE  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS, 

NEW  HAVEN,  CONNECTICUT 
1912 

8468? 


i     - 


-..     O   1  •  «  )  \ 

— .     *5     »^     «*»    VJ 

WEIMAR:  PRINTED  BY  R.  WAGNER  SOHN. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  SUBJECT        ........     145 

I.  MARLOWE'S  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE  CONTENTION  AND 
TRUE  TRAGEDY. 

1.  External  Evidence 148 

2.  Plot 152 

3.  Character  .         .         .        .......         .         .156 

4.  Verbal  Parallels  in  the  Contention  and    True  Tragedy  and 

in  accepted  Plays  of  Marlowe 160 

5.  Metrical  Evidence     .        .     .    .        .        .        .        .        .        .177 

6.  flow  Far  do  the  Contention  and   True    Tragedy  represent 
Marlowe's  Original  Text? 183 

II.  THE  G-KEENE-PEELE  MYTH          ...        .        .        .188 

III.  SHAKESPEARE'S  REVISION  OF  MARLOWE'S  WORK    .    194 


H.— THE  AUTHORSHIP 
OF  THE  SECOND  AND  THIRD  PARTS  OF  KING  HENRY  VI, 

BY  C.  F.  TUCKER  BROOKE. 

THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  SUBJECT. 

During  the  first  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century,  at  least 
five  opposing  theories  were  circulated  in  regard  to  the  authorship 
of  the  second  and  third  Henry  VI  plays,  each  supported  by  careful 
research  and  ingenious  argument.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  successive 
labors  of  Malone,  Knight,  Halliwell,  Grant  White,  and  Miss  Jane  Lee, 
with  their  respective  followers,  the  problem  was  left  at  the  end  so 
much  involved  in  the  mists  of  conflicting  opinion  as  to  appear  more 
insoluble  than  ever.  Indeed,  the  very  mass  of  accumulated  argument 
has  apparently  had  the  effect  of  stifling  inquiry  during  the  last 
thirty-five  years,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  publication  of 
careful  facsimiles  of  the  early  quarto  editions  of  1594/5  and  1619  has 
placed  the  means  of  study  within  easy  reach. 

It  is  possible  that  the  failure  of  critics  so  far  to  arrive  at  conclu- 
sive results  arises  from  the  circumstance  that  they  have  all  treated 
the  question  primarily,  if  not  exclusively,  in  connexion  with  its 
bearing  upon  Shakespeare.  Malone  (d.  1812)  contented  himself 
with  proving  that  Shakespeare  was  not  the  author  of  the  early  quar- 
tos entitled  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  and  The  True  Tragedy. 
These  plays  he  first  assigned,  with  little  discussion,  to  Greene  and 
Peele  on  the  evidence  of  a  passage  in  Greene's  Groatsworth  of  Wit.1 
Subsequently,  Malone  lightly  renounced  this  theory,  and  accepted 
the  suggestion  of  Marlowe's  authorship,  originally  proposed  by  Dr. 
Richard  Farmer  (d.  1797). 2 

Charles  Knight,  in  his  Pictorial  Shakespeare  (1839,  etc.),  attempted 
on  grounds  purely  sentimental  to  establish  Shakespeare's  exclusive 
right  to  the  plays  in  all  their  phases.  This  extravagant  claim,  which 
contradicts  all  the  probabilities,  has  not  been  accepted,  I  believe,  by 
any  other  writer  on  the  subject. 

In  1843,  J.  O.  Halliwell  (later  HaUiweU-PhiUips)  edited  The  First 
Part  of  the  Contention  and  The  True  Tragedy  for  the  (old)  Shake- 

1  See  the  Dissertation  on  the  Three  Parts  of  King  Henry  VI,  printed  in 
Boswell's  edition  of  Malone's  Shakespeare  (1821),  vol.  xviii,  p.  570  ff. 

2  See  An  Attempt  to  Ascertain  the  Order  in  which  the  Plays  of  Shakspeare 
were   Written,  Boswell's  Malone,  vol.  ii,  p.  311  ff. 


146  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

speare  Society.  In  his  introduction  to  this  work,  the  editor  set  up, 
as  a  sort  of  compromise  between  the  views  of  Malone  and  Knight, 
the  unfounded  conjecture  that  the  original  plays  upon  which  2  and  3 
Henry  VI  were  based  have  been  lost,  and  that  the  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy  "  included  the  first  additions  which  Shakespeare  made 
to  the  originals."  The  gratuitous  assumption  of  such  a  hypothesis, 
inspired  by  the  pious  desire  of  the  Shakespeare-worshipper  to  ascribe 
to  his  idol  whatever  might  be  of  particular  merit  in  the  work,  while 
relieving  him  of  all  responsibility  for  the  mediocre  portions,  really 
carries  the  problem  out  of  the  domain  of  logical  research,  and  makes 
the  discussion  of  the  non- Shakespearean  residue  impracticable  and 
unimportant. 

An  equally  one-sided  attitude  to  the  question  is  involved  in 
Richard  Grant  White's  more  painstaking  Essay  on  the  Authorship 
of  Henry  VI  (1859).  It  was,  of  course,  natural  that  this  elaborate 
paper,  composed  for  insertion  in  White's  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
should  concern  itself  primarily,  like  its  predecessors,  with  Shake- 
speare's interest  in  the  plays.  White's  theory  assumes  that  all  the 
passages  in  the  earlier  plays  (*'.  e.,  Contention  and  True  Tragedy] 
retained  in  2  and  3  Henry  VI  were  of  Shakespeare's  original  compo- 
sition. Thus,  only  the  poor  rejected  matter  in  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy  is  ascribed  to  the  other  authors,  whom  White  identifies  as 
Greene,  Peele,  and  Marlowe;  and  White's  treatment  of  the  non- Shake- 
spearean side  of  the  question  degenerates  into  an  unworthy  attempt 
to  show  by  illustrative  excerpts  that  the  poets  named  were  incapable 
of  writing  of  the  scenes  retained  in  2  and  3  Henry  VI. 

Miss  Lee's  paper,1  the  most  clearly  reasoned  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject which  has  yet  appeared,  is  mainly  occupied  with  a  refutation  of 
the  ill-advised  Shakespearean  claims  of  Knight,  Halliwell,  and  White. 
She  advances  solid,  and,  it  appears  to  me,  sufficient  arguments  in 
favor  of  the  belief  that  Shakespeare  had  no  part  in  the  Contention  or 
the  True  Tragedy.  Yet  Miss  Lee's  negative  thesis  is  not  much  less 
engrossed  with  the  special  Shakespearean  interest  of  the  problem  than 
were  the  positive  theories  which  she  opposed.  Though  she  very  con- 
scientiously devoted  considerable  pains  to  the  discussion  of  Mar- 
lowe's and  Greene's  share  in  the  earlier  plays,  she  really  left  that 
part  of  the  subject  as  undecided  as  she  found  it.  Her  concluding 
statements  are  that  "  Marlowe  and  Greene,  and  possibly  Peele,  were 
the  authors"  of  the  older  plays,  and  "  that  there  is,  at  least,  nothing 

1  "  On  the  Authorship  of  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI  and 
their  Originals,"  Transactions  of  the  New  ShaJcspere  Society,  1875  —  76, 
p.  219  ff. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  147 

unreasonable,  or  even  improbable,  in  supposing "  that  Marlowe 
furthermore  collaborated  with  Shakespeare  in  the  revised  2  and  J 
Henry  VI.1 

Thus  critical  investigation  during  nearly  a  century  had  travelled 
a  circular  path.  Miss  Lee,  in  1875,  guided  by  independent  research, 
occupied  approximately  the  same  vague  position  taken  up  by  Malone 
before  1800.  It  is  not  surprising  that  this  relative  failure  to  advance, 
in  view  of  the  careful  scholarship  and  indubitable  earnestness  of 
the  various  investigators,  should  have  discouraged  further  effort. 
It  may  be  believed,  however,  without  excessive  temerity,  that  the 
difficulties  encountered  arose  less  from  inherent  lack  of  evidence 
than  from  the  preoccupation  of  all  the  critics  with  one  attractive, 
but  rather  unproductive,  aspect  of  the  question.  The  direct  approach 
to  the  mystery  of  the  authorship  of  2  and  J  Henry  VI  from  the  side 
of  Shakespeare's  concern  in  the  plays  offers  little  secure  foothold 
for  the  critic.  Those  writers  who,  like  Knight,  Halliwell,  and  White, 
attempted  to  prove  Shakespeare's  exclusive  or  partial  interest  in  the 
antecedent  plays  of  the  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy  seem  by 
all  the  best  evidence  to  have  been  upholding  a  theory  with  no  basis 
of  fact ;  and  they  unconsciously  distorted  the  real  truths  in  order  to 
render  this  preconceived  fiction  tenable.  Critics  of  the  opposing  group 
expended  far  more  care  upon  the  disproof  of  Shakespeare's  author- 
ship than  upon  the  discovery  of  the  actual  writers.  Malone,  indeed, 
regarding  the  question,  like  Knight  and  White,  from  the  specialized 
view-point  of  the  editor  of  Shakespeare,  frankly  lost  interest  when 
he  had  shown  reason  to  believe  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
non- Shakespearean.  Even  Miss  Lee's  more  comprehensive  dis- 
cussion manifests  in  the  constructive  portion  which  deals  with  the 
actual  origin  of  the  earlier  plays  a  vagueness  and  comparative  in- 


1  In  consequence  of  a  challenge  from  Dr.  Furnivall,  Miss  Lee  added, 
though  with  doubt  and  against  her  expressed  better  judgment,  tables  indi- 
cating Shakespeare's  and  Marlowe's  shares  in  2  and  3  Henry  VI,  and  Mar- 
lowe's and  Greene's  shares  in  Contention  and  True  Tragedy.  These  tables, 
which  seem  to  me  to  possess  no  importance,  will  be  found  on  pp.  293—306 
of  the  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society,  1875  —  76.  Other  dis- 
cussions worthy  of  attention  are:  A.  Dyce,  in  the  prefatory  matter  to  his 
editions  of  Marlowe  (1850,  etc.),  and  Shakespeare  (1857,  etc.);  F.  G.  Fleay, 
"Who  Wrote  Henry  VI  ?"  Macmillan's  Magazine,  Nov.,  1875,  p.  50—62; 
A.  C.  Swinburne,  "  The  Three  Stages  of  Shakespeare,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
Jan.,  1876,  p.  25-30;  F.  E.  Schelling,  The  English  Chronicle  Play,  1902, 
p.  78  ff. ;  J.  T.  Murray,  English  Dramatic  Companies,  1558  — 1642;  1910. 
vol.  i,  p.  59  —  67. 


148  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

difference  very  strikingly  in  contrast  with  the  admirable  acuteness 
with  which  she  defends  her  negative  position  in  regard  to  Shake- 
speare's authorship. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  question  of  Shakespeare's  concern  in 
the  Henry  VI  plays  possesses  considerably  higher  importance  than 
any  other  which  arises  in  this  connexion.  It  seems  clear,  however, 
that  this  question  can  be  adequately  discussed  only  after  definite 
knowledge  has  been  attained  regarding  the  origin  and  general  charac- 
ter of  the  plays  upon  which  Shakespeare  based  his  work.  In  the 
following  treatment,  therefore,  I  purpose  first  to  consider  in  detail 
the  authorship  and  dramatic  structure  of  the  plays  which  Shake- 
speare received  as  his  sources — namely,  the  Contention  and  the  True 
Tragedy ;  and  then,  on  the  basis  of  what  may  thus  be  ascertained, 
to  attempt  an  investigation  of  the  extent  and  nature  of  the  altera- 
tions introduced  by  Shakespeare.  It  is  hoped  that  some  light  may 
thus  be  thrown  upon  the  character  of  Shakespeare's  style  and  method 
during  his  earliest  dramatic  period. 

That  Marlowe  was  responsible  for  much  or  all  of  the  best  poetry 
in  the  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy  has  been  at  least  vaguely 
accepted  by  all  writers  on  the  subject  for  many  years.  Collier,  in- 
deed,1 appears  to  be  the  only  nineteenth-century  critic  who  felt 
doubt  concerning  Marlowe's  authorship,  though  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  these  plays  has  long  been  complicated  by  the  general 
acceptance  of  a  piece  of  external  evidence,  which  I  shall  discuss 
later, 2  as  proving  that  Greene  and  Peele  also  had  shares  in  the  work. 

It  will  be  well  to  take  up  the  examination  of  the  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  authorship  of  Marlowe, 
the  only  Elizabethan  writer  who,  in  my  opinion,  has  any  demon- 
strable interest  in  these  plays. 


I.  MARLOWE'S  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE  CONTENTION  AND  TRUE  TRAGEDY. 

1.   External  evidence. 

It  is  a  familiar  fact  that  the  two  plays  known  since  1623  as  the 
second  and  third  parts  of  Henry  VI  have  each  been  preserved  in 
three  different  forms.  It  will  be  well  to  distinguish  clearly  the  three 
phases  in  the  evolution  of  the  text. 

1  See  J.  P.  Collier,  History  of  English  Dramatic  Poetry,  etc.,  2nd  ed.,   1879, 
vol.  ii,  p.  519-521. 
8  See  below,  p.  188  ff. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  149 

I.  2  Henry  VI  is  first  mentioned  in  the  following  entry  on  the 
Stationers'   Register  for  March   12,    1593/4 :   "  Thomas  Millington 
Entred  for  his  copie  vnder  the  handes  of  bothe  the  wardens  a  booke 
intituled,  the  firste  parte  of  the  Contention  of  the  twoo  famous  houses 
of  York  and  Lancaster  with  the  death  of  the  good  Duke  Humfrey, 
and  the  banishement  and  Deathe  of  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  and  the 
tragical!  ende  of  the  proud  Cardinal!  of  Winchester,  with  the  notable 
rebellion  of  Jack  Cade  and  the  Duke  of  Yorkes  f firste  clayme  vnto  the 
Crowne."     In  the  same  year  (1594),  the  play  was  printed,  by  Thomas 
Creed  for  Thomas  Millington,  with  a  title  identical,  except  for  spelling 
and  the  change  of  one  preposition,  with  that  given  in  the  Register. 

The  earliest  version  of  3  Henry  VI  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
registered  before  publication  ;  but  it  was  printed  for  Millington  by 
P.  S.  (Peter  Short)  in  the  following  year  (1595),  with  the  title  :  "  The 
true  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  death  of  good 
King  Henrie  the  Sixt,  with  the  whole  contention  betweene  the  two 
Houses  Lancaster  and  Yorke,  as  it  was  sundrie  times  acted  by  the 
Right  Honourable  the  Earle  of  Pembrooke  his  seruants." 

In  the  year  1600,  Millington  published  reprints  of  both  plays,  in- 
volving no  essential  alterations. 

II.  In  1603,  Millington  retired  from  business.    On  April  19  of  the 
previous  year  (1602),  doubtless  with  the  idea  of  winding  up  his  affairs, 
he  assigned  over  to  Thomas  Pavier  his  interest  in  the  two  plays 
we  are  considering,  which  he  terms  "  the  first  and  second  parte  of 
Henry  the  vi*  ij  bookes."     It  is  not  known  that  Pavier  attempted 
to  make  commercial  use  of  the  copyright  which  he  had  thus  obtained 
till  1619,  for  his  only  extant  edition  of  the  plays,  though  it  bears  no 
date  on  its  title-page,  appears  to  have  been  brought  out  simultane- 
ously with  his  1619  edition  of  Pericles.1    Pavier's  version  combined 
the  two  plays  received  from  Millington  in  a  single  quarto  with  the 
title :  "  The  Whole  Contention  betweene  the  two  Famous  Houses, 
Lancaster  and  Yorke.     With  the  Tragical!  ends  of  the  good  Duke 
Humfrey,  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  King  Henrie  the  sixt.    Diuided 
into  two  Parts :  And  newly  corrected  and  enlarged.     Written  by 
William  Shakespeare,   Gent."     The  text  here  printed  introduced 
a  number  of  more  or  less  trivial  alterations,  which  will  be  discussed 

1  The  signatures  at  the  bottoms  of  the  leaves  in  the  two  quartos  are 
continuous ;  that  is,  the  leaves  in  the  Whole  Contention  are  signed  with  the 
letters,  A — Q,  while  the  1619  Pericles  begins  with  R.  The  probable  reason 
for  Pavier's  long  delay  in  issuing  an  edition  of  our  plays  is  that  he  took 
over  in  1602,  along  with  the  copyright,  a  number  of  unsold  copies  of  Milling- 
ton's  1600  quartos. 


150  C.  F.   Tucker  Brooke, 

later.1  It  may  be  said  at  once  that  Pavier's  assertion  of  Shake- 
speare's authorship  seems  to  be  quite  as  little  grounded  in  this  case 
as  in  the  same  publisher's  editions  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  (1600)2  and 
A  Yorkshire  Tragedy  (1608),  where  the  words,  "  Written  by  W(il- 
liam)  Shakespeare  "  likewise  appear. 

III.  The  third  and  final  phase  in  the  evolution  of  the  text  of  the 
plays  under  discussion  is  found  in  the  1623  Shakespeare  Folio.  Here 
for  the  first  time,  the  two  plays,  clearly  first  written  as  a  two-part 
/drama,  and  so  regarded  for  thirty  years,  are  associated  with  the 
*  previously  unpublished  First  Part  of  King  Henry  VI  and  thus 
changed  into  the  second  and  third  members  of  a  trilogy.  The  verbal 
alterations  in  the  1623  edition  of  our  plays  are  so  radical,  particu- 
larly in  the  case  of  2  Henry  VI,  as  to  make  the  revised  texts  almost 
new  dramas,  though  the  basic  elements  of  plot  and  character  are  not 
very  seriously  affected.^ 

There  is  evidence  to  indicate  that  the  revision  represented  in  the 
1623  text  was  carried  out  not  later  than  1592 3:  and  it  seems  very 
likely  that  the  matter  then  added  was  exclusively  Shakespearean 
work  and  was  the  only  Shakespearean  work  in  the  plays.  There- 
fore, the  discussion  of  Shakespeare's  concern,  in  the  concluding 
section  of  this  article,  will  be  mainly  a  discussion  of  the  peculiar 
features  of  the  1623  text. 

Let  us  return  for  the  present  to  the  consideration  of  the  external 
evidence  connected  with  Millington's  editions.  It  will  have  been 
noted  that  the  first  title-page  of  the  True  Tragedy  expressly  declares 
the  drama  to  have  been  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  Company. 
The  connection  between  the  two  plays  under  discussion  is  so  close, 
and  the  later  one  so  entirely  unintelligible  without  the  earlier,  that 
it  is  perfectly  safe  to  conclude  that  the  introductory  drama  of  the 
Contention  must  have  been  produced  by  the  same  company.  The 
determination  of  the  company  by  which  the,  plays  printed  by-,Milling- 
ton  were  acted,  does  not,  of  course,  determine  their  authorship. 
Both  Greene  and  Marlowe,  among  others,  are  known  to  have  written 
for  Pembroke's  Men.  The  fact,  however,  that  The  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy  texts  represent  plays  written  for  Lord  Pembroke's 
Company  justifies  us  in  inferring  that  Shakespeare  had  nothing  to 
do  with  them ;  for  there  is  every  reason  against  believing  that  Shake- 
speare had  direct  relations  at  any  period  of  his  life  with  any  but  the 

1  See  p.  186  ff. 

2  This  edition  of  Oldcastle,  though  dated  1600,  was  probably  printed  in 
the  same  year  as  the  Whole  Contention  (1619). 

»  See  p.  191. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI." 

single  company — known  successively  as  Lord  Strange's,  Lord  Derby's 
Lord  Hunsdon's,  the  Lord  Chamberlain's,  and  the  King's — of  which 
he  was  personally  a  member. 

Those  critics  who  imagine  Shakespeare  employed  during  his  early 
years  as  a  hack  writer  for  various  companies  reason  against  all  the 
evidence  and  all  the  probabilities.  The  old  distinction  between  the 
"  universit)'  wits  "  on  the  one  hand  and  Shakespeare  on  the  other 
is  trite  and  superficial,  but  it  has  one  true  side.  About  1590,  there 
were  two  sets  of  dramatic  writers  in  London.  The  larger  class  was 
made  up  of  professional  litterateurs,  who,  like  Greene  and  Marlowe, 
had  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  stage,  or  whose  interest  in  any 
one  company,  like  that  of  Ben  Jonson,  was  too  unsatisfactory  to 
encourage  permanence.  These  poets  naturally  disposed  of  their 
plays  as  best  they  could,  now  to  one  company,  now  to  another,  but 
nearly  always,  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  at  pitiably  low  rates  and  much  to 
their  own  discontent.  To  the  other  set  belonged  Shakespeare^who, 
approaching  the  stage  from  its  non-literary  side,  was  already  a  loyal 
and  relatively  prosperous  actor  in  a  particular  company  when  he 
commenced  his  career  as  playwright  by  patching  up  old  dramas  for 
purely  utilitarian  reasons.  To  the  end,  Shakespeare's  income  from 
the  success  of  his  company  seems  to  have  far  exceeded  his  earnings 
as  a  writer.  Considering,  then,  where  the  theatrical  profits  lay  in 
his  time,  it  would  have  been  utterly  absurd  for  Shakespeare  to 
dispose  of  any  play  capable  of  being  successfully  acted  to  a  company  (X> 
in  which  he  had  no  interest.  And  it  is  hardly  less  absurd  to  imagine 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  Company  applying  for  dramatic  material, 
between  1590  and  1592  to  an  active  member  of  a  rival  company, 
who  was  as  yet  almost  unknown  as  a  dramatic  author. 

Pembroke's  company  acted  Marlowe's  Edward  II,  which  seems 
to  have  been  composed  a  very  little  later  than  the  plays  we  are 
considering. x 

The  only  other  piece  of  external  evidence  bearing  upon  the 
1594/5  texts  concerns  the  publisher,  Thomas  Millington.  The  entry 
of  the  Contention,  March  12,  1593/4,  quoted  above,2  is  the  earliest 
mention  of  Millington's  name  on  the  Stationers'  Register.  Milling- 
ton  next  appears,  just  two  months  and  five  days  later  (May  17, 
1594),  when  he,  in  conjunction  with  Nicholas  Linge,  registered  "  the 
famouse  tragedie  of  the  Riche  Jewe  of  Malta."  Unfortunately,  no 
edition  of  the  Jew  of  Malta,  published  at  this  time,  is  known  to 
have  survived  ;  but  it  is  worth  remarking  that  the  registration  notice, 

1  With  reference  to  the  relative  dates  of  these  plays,  see  pp.   173  —  177. 

2  See  p.  149. 


152  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

like  that  of  the  Contention,  and  like  the  registration  notice  and  all 
the  early  title-pages  of  Tamburlaine,  omits  the  author's  name.  Hence, 
Millington's  failure  to  mention  Marlowe  as  author  of  the  Contention 
and  True  Tragedy  should  not  be  taken  as  evidence  against  that 
poet's  authorship,  particularly  as  the  revised  version  by  Shake- 
speare must  probably  have  been  better  known  to  the  public  at 
the  time  when  Millington's  quartos  were  published. 

The  rather  scanty  external  evidence  regarding  the  1594/5  texts 
of  our  plays  seems  to  me,  therefore,  quite  sufficient  to  disqualify 
Shakespeare  as  possible  author.  Respecting  the  positive  determi- 
nation of  authorship,  though  there  is  nothing  in  this  evidence  which 
at  all  approaches  proof,  it  seems  worth  remembering  that  the  com- 
pany which  acted  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  very  shortly 
after  acted  Marlowe's  play  of  Edward  II,  and  that  the  publisher 
of  our  plays  recorded  his  ownership  of  the  copyright  of  Marlowe's 
other  play  of  The  Jew  of  Malta  during  the  very  months  when  the 
Contention  and  True  Tragedy  were  issuing  from  his  press. 

2.  Plot. 

The  two  plays  we  are  considering  are  very  carefully  welded  into 
one.  The  Contention  breaks  off  abruptly  at  the  most  exciting  mo- 
ment, when  the  success  of  York  at  the  first  Battle  of  St.  Albans 
renders  civil  war  inevitable.  Without  any  intermission  or  prelude, 
the  first  scene  of  the  True  Tragedy  introduces  the  conversation 
of  the  victorious  leaders  as  they  compare  their  experiences  on  the 
battle-field.  The  whole  work  is  planned  with  an  imaginative  appre- 
ciation of  the  meaning  of  history  and  a  power  of  unifying  details 
which  are  very  remarkable  and  which  would  make  themselves  more 
generally  felt  even  in  the  revised  versions  of  Shakespeare,  if  these 
plays  were  there  separated  in  the  reader's  mind  from  the  unrelated 
First  Part  of  Henry  VI.  The  very  determination  of  the  limits  of 
the  double  drama  shows  marked  constructive  ability.  The  first 
play  opens  with  the  arrival  of  Margaret,  England's  evil  genius. 
The  second  closes  with  the  final  ruin  of  Margaret's  cause  at  Tewkes- 
bury,  and  the  death  of  the  pious  Henry,  whose  fate  has  been  so 
disastrously  linked  with  that  of  his  terrible  queen.  Between  these 
termini  the  poet's  imagination  moves  with  an  iron  precision.  Though 
the  historical  figures  necessarily  shift  and  disappear,  the  tone  of 
the  work  never  changes.  There  is  nothing  irrelevant  or  episodic. 
Even  the  Horner,  Simcox,  and  Cade  scenes  in  the  Contention  bear 
directly  upon  the  general  tragic  plot  and  have  their  comedy  suffused 
with  its  stern  light. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  153 

// 

This  singleness  of  purpose  and  feeling,  in  dramas  dealing  with 

a  particularly  chaotic  era  and  belonging  clearly  to  the  earliest  period 
in  the  development  of  the  history  play,  is  a  very  remarkable  pheno- 
menon. How  far  such  solidarity  of  outlook  lay  from  the  youthful 
Shakespeare  will  be  abundantly  clear  when  we  come  to  analyze 
the  spirit  in  which  the  changes  introduced  into  the  revised  2  and  3 
Henry  VI  were  made.  How  infinitely  far  it  lay  from  Peele  and 
Greene  need  hardly  be  suggested  to  any  one  who  has  considered 
the  wonderful  medleys  of  plot  and  tone  illustrated  in  Edward  I, 
James  IV,  and  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay.  Leaving  all  con- 
firmatory evidence  out  of  mind,  I  believe  that  it  would  be  safe  to 
assert  that  the  brilliant  synthesis  of  plot  and  emotion  manifested  in 
the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  can  about  1590  have  been  the  work 
of  only  one  dramatist  known  to  literary  history.  The  whole  tangled 
story  is  resolutely  pitched  in  a  single  key,  preserved  with  hardly 
a  fluctuation  through  the  two  plays,  which  thus  become  a  kind  of 
monody  on  the  single  note  of  ambition,  transmitted  from  the  throat 
of  one  leading  figure  to  that  of  the  next,  from  York's  glorious 
vaunt  in  the  first  scene  of  the  Contention  to  Richard's  final  pro- 
clamation of  his  magnificent  villainy  at  the  close  of  the  True  Tragedy. 
This  insistence  upon  one  mood  and  one  aspect  produces  a  sense  of 
order  in  the  midst  of  plot  confusion  and  a  touch  also  of  that  fine 
lucidity  which  in  classic  works  accompanies  restrictedness  of  view^ 
For  other  examples  of  this  rare  unity  injected  into  ill-unified 
matter  by  the  vividness  of  the  poet's  feeling  one  can  turn  among 
plays  contemporary  with  those  we  are  discussing  only  to  the  ac- 
cepted works  of  Marlowe.  Through  the  two  parts  of  Tamburlaine 
the  fervid  expression  of  heaven-topping  egoism  lends  consecutive- 
ness  and  meaning  to  the  hopelessly  ill-ordered  material.  In  Edward  II, 
the  first  great  English  historical  play,  a  wild,  purposeless  reign  and 
an  uninteresting  monarch  are  made  deeply  affecting  by  the  con- 
sistent tragedy  which  the  poet,  almost  gratuitously,  reads  into  them. 
An  even  closer  parallel  to  the  tone  and  method  of  the  Contention 
and  True  Tragedy  is  found  in  Marlowe's  Massacre  at  Paris,  where 
French  history  during  seventeen  years  just  past  (1572—1589)  is 
carelessly  depicted  in  connexion  with  the  three  sensational  inci- 
dents of  the  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  Massacre,  the  death  of  the  Due 
de  Guise,  and  the  assassination  of  Henri  III.  Here  there  is  no  sem- 
blance of  technical  unity.  Yet  the  reader  hardly  perceives  any 
incoherence,  because  the  consuming  anti-papal  ardor  of  the  poet 
is  strong  enough  to  focuss  and  bring  into  apparent  relation  all  the 
alien  elements  of  the  play. 


154  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

There  is  about  Marlowe's  genius  a  kind  of  fierceness  of  perception 
and  expression  which  renders  him  equally  incapable  of  dramatic 
impartiality,  of  incoherence,  and  of  dullness.  Life  and  history  he 
viewed  always  from  one  side  only,  the  side  of  the  picturesque ;  and 
what  he  saw  he  reproduced  necessarily  in  the  most  brilliant  color, 
with  little  of  the  modesty  of  nature,  but  with  a  glowing  feeling  which 
made  his  picture,  however  unfaithful  to  outward  fact,  inevitably 
true  in  its  expression  of  a  single  clear  passion  of  the  poet.  Once 
the  predominant  emotion  is  set  in  play,  it  courses  through  the  work, 
and  tinges  every  atom  of  material.  No  triviality,  digression,  or 
change  of  attitude  is  possible.  In  Tamburlaine,  the  hero's  lust  for 
conquest  rages  through  every  scene.  In  Faustus,  the  atmosphere 
of  sulphur  and  brimstone  pervades  even  such  ostensibly  comic 
passages  as  the  masque  of  the  seven  deadly  sins,  Faust's  visit  to  Rome, 
or  the  interview  with  the  horse-courser.  Never  for  an  instant, 
I  think,  in  the  genuine  part  of  that  play,  is  the  central  tragic  idea 
out  of  the  mind  of  either  poet  or  spectator.  So  it  is  with  the  plays 
we  are  considering.  The  True  Tragedy,  the  higher-pitched  of  the 
two,  contains  no  spark  of  .comedy,  a  thing  almost  marvellous  in  an 
early  English  history  play.  The  Contention  has  several  scenes,  which, 
handled  by  any  Elizabethan  writer  except  Marlowe,  would  probably 
be  broadly  farcical  and  digressive;  but  as  they  here  appear,  they 
are  filled  no  less  than  the  rest  of  the  drama  with  the  muffled  roar  of 
civil  war.  The  Homer  and  Cade  scenes,  instead  of  conflicting  with 
the  tragic  passages,  seem  to  me  to  tend  toward  precisely  the  same 
effect 

In  an  age  when  the  drama  was  almost  universally  inclined  to 
excessive  range  of  mood  and  subject,  this  constant  adherence  to 
the  one  note  is  very  conspicuous.  It  made  Marlowe  a  poor  drama- 
tist in  several  respects :  it  certainly  prevented  the  normal  expansion 
of  his  abilities  as  a  playwright.  Undoubtedly,  however,  it  permitted 
him  to  give  unity  and  force  to  the  handling  of  subjects  which  would 
otherwise  have  \vanted  both  those  qualities. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  Marlowe  lacked  the  perception  of  comedy. 
This  is  probably  not  true.  A  grim  sense  of  humor  will  hardly  be 
denied  the  poet  by  those  who  have  carefully  read  his  works.  It  is, 
however,  quite  true  that  the  student  of  Marlowe  misses  both  the 
irresponsible  transition  from  black  tragedy  to  light-hearted  merri- 
ment, so  characteristic  of  the  cruder  Elizabethan  dramatists,  and 
also  Shakespeare's  judicial  power  of  setting  side  by  side  the  tragic 
aspect  which  a  particular  circumstance  may  bear  for  those  vitally 
interested  and  the  commonplace  or  even  ludicrous  view  taken  by 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  155 

casual  outsiders.  The  absence  of  this  changefulness  of  mood  and  of 
dramatic  irony  should  probably  be  ascribed,  not  to  any  congenital 
want  of  humor  in  the  poet,  but  to  his  total  absorption  in  the  special 
side  of  the  question  which  he  is  endeavoring  to  portray.  Few  men 
can  throw  themselves  into  the  delineation  of  the  highest  sublimities 
of  passion  and  at  the  same  time  retain  full  consciousness  of  all  the 
little  humorous  accompaniments  of  life.  Even  in  Shakespeare 
thi  power  came  only  with  maturity,  and  in  Shakespeare  it  is  almost 
unique.  It  is  easy  for  the  cold  critic,  sympathizing  with  Shake- 
speare's Pistol,  to  find  much  that  is  absurd  in  the  intensity  of  Tambur- 
laine  ;  but  it  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  any  poet,  while 
in  a  mood  unimpassioned  enough  to  be  conscious  of  these  laughable 
trivialities,  to  reach  the  tragic  exaltation  which  makes  the  greatness 
of  Marlowe's  play.  Thus,  the  fact  that  Marlowe's  strong  tragic 
pinion  bears  him  in  his  moments  of  inspiration  above  the  lowly 
species  of  comedy  with  which  Greene,  for  instance,  was  accustomed 
to  intersperse  his  romantic  extravaganzas  should  not  be  taken  as 
a  necessary  indication  that  Marlowe  at  all  times  lacks  a  sense  of 
humor,  or  that  he  was  incapable  of  utilizing  comic  material  where 
it  was  possible  to  do  so  without  subverting  the  great  tragic  purpose 
of  his  dramas.  The  evidence  is  all  against  this  common  assumption. 
I  believe  that  the  most  conspicuous  comic  scenes  in  the  Conten- 
tion, those  dealing  with  Jack  Cade,  are  distinctly  in  Marlowe's 
manner.  It  has  been  usual,  of  course,  to  declare  that  these  scenes 
cannot  have  been  composed  by  Marlowe,  because  they  are  effective 
comedy,  and  Marlowe  was  no  comic  writer.  Such  an  argument 
involves  a  complete  non  sequitur.  What  we  are  really  justified  in 
expecting  of  comic  matter  introduced  by  Marlowe  into  a  serious  play 
is  that  it  shall  not  be  tawdry,  as  is  much  of  Greene's  buffoonery  and 
most  of  the  later,  non-Marlovian,  additions  to  the  text  of  Doctor 
Faustus ;  and  that  it  shall  not  be  extraneous  to  the  main  issue  of 
the  play,  as  Shakespeare's  early  comic  scenes  usually  are.  The  Cade 
scenes  offend  in  none  of  these  respects.  So  far  are  they  from  being 
irrelevant  that  they  serve  a  very  necessary  function  in  preparing 
the  way  for  York's  rebellion  and  bringing  out  the  instability  of 
Henry's  rule.  Their  spirit  is  not  that  imparted  by  the  professed 
comedian  or  fun-maker.  Cade's  followers,  unlike  the  insipid  clowns 
of  contemporary  farce,  are  a  band  of  wild  fanatics,  as  heavily  charged 
with  tragedy  as  any  that  in  later  days  did  homage  to  the  goddess 
Guillotine.  Their  follies  and  extravagances,  like  the  murderous 
jests  in  The  Massacre  at  Paris,  have  in  every  case  a  deadly  sequel 
which  actually  darkens  the  black  atmosphere  of  the  tragedy. 


156  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

The  figure  of  Cade  himself  is  a  masterpiece  which  could  never 
have  emerged  from  the  brain  of  an  essentially  "  comic  "  writer. 
Instead  of  the  buffoon  and  demagogue  that  one  would  expect,  one 
finds  a  colossus  in  whose  character  grandeur  and  pathos  are  continually 
getting  the  better  of  boorishness — a  giant  peasant  type  near  of  kin 
to  Tamburlaine,  wrho  seems  restrained  only  by  the  limitations  of  the 
historic  plot  from  snapping  the  bonds  of  the  commonplace  and 
soaring  with  the  Scythian  shepherd  into  the  heights  of  poetry  and 
heroism.  That  the  Cade  scenes  could  have  been  \vritten  by  Shake- 
speare at  the  early  period  at  which  they  were  written  appears  simply 
impossible  in  the  light  of  what  we  know  of  that  poet's  comic 
method  in  such  contemporary  plays  as  Love's  Labor's  Lost  and  The 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona.  That  the  scenes  in  question  were  moulded 
at  the  same  time  as  the  rest  of  the  original  play,  of  which  they  form  an 
integral  part,  is,  I  think,  unquestionable  ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in 
spirit  and  character  delineation  they  bear  the  strongest  testimony 
to  Marlowe's  authorship. 

3.  Character. 

The  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  contain  twelve  important 
characters.  Of  these  eight  are  conspicuous  in  the  earlier  play :  Suf- 
folk, Margaret,  King  Henry,  Duke  Humphrey,  Cardinal  Beaufort, 
York,  Warwick,  and  Jack  Cade.  Four  of  these,  Humphrey,  the 
Cardinal,  Suffolk,  and  Cade,  die  during  the  course  of  the  earlier 
play ;  and  the  remaining  four  are  supplemented  in  the  True  Tragedy 
by  Richard,  Edward,  and  Young  Clifford,  who,  though  all  on  the 
stage  in  the  last  part  of  the  Contention  are  not  there  psychologically 
important.  The  True  Tragedy  introduces  one  new  figure  worthy 
of  study  in  Margaret's  son,  Prince  Edward. 

If  any  deduction  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  plays  is  to  be 
drawn  from  their  delineation  of  character,  the  final  conclusion  must 
be  based  upon  the  treatment  of  these  twelve  figures.  The  character 
of  Cade  has  already  been  discussed.  It  seems  to  me  unlike  the  work 
of  any  known  dramatist  of  the  time  except  Marlowe. 

The  other  notable  figures  divide  themselves  into  two  or  three 
groups.  Seven  of  them,  the  most  memorable  and  the  least  altered 
in  Shakespeare's  revision,  represent  the  type  of  bold  bad  nobility 
whose  romantically  egoistic  and  vindictive  figures  seem  in  Edward  II 
and  The  Massacre  at  Paris  to  have  caught  the  imagination  of  Mar- 
lowe to  the  exclusion  of  nearly  everything  else  in  history.  Suffolk, 
Warwick,  the  Cardinal,  and  Young  Clifford  form  a  group  of  over- 
daring,  remorseless,  terrible,  yet  splendid  peers  comparable  only 


The  Autliorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  157 

perhaps  with  the  similar  group  of  turbulent  barons  in  Edward  II. 
Three  other  figures  of  this  same  type,  York,  Queen  Margaret,  and 
Richard,  are  yet  more  highly  individualized.  They  are  masterpieces 
of  that  overwhelming  evil  ambition  and  malignant  selfishness  in 
which  a  rather  curious  twist  of  Marlowe's  genius  made  him  see  the 
highest  reach  of  human  glory.  These  three  characters  are  related 
by  the  closest  bonds  to  the  supreme  embodiments  of  evil  power  in 
Marlowe's  accepted  history  plays :  Young  Mortimer  in  Edward  II 
and  Guise  and  the  Old  Queen  in  the  Massacre  at  Paris.  Verbal 
similarities  may  be  reserved  for  later  discussion  ;  but  on  the  evidence 
of  spirit  and  general  style  alone,  it  seems  impossible  to  read  in  suc- 
cession two  such  companion  passages  as  those  printed  below  without 
complete  assurance  that  in  each  the  same  poet's  mind  has  been  at 
work  under  the  impulse  of  the  same  inspiration.  The  first  quotation 
is  from  the  soliloquy  of  Guise  near  the  opening  of  the  Massacre  at 
Paris  (11.  91  ff.).1  The  second  gives  the  soliloquy  of  York  at  the 
close  of  the  first  scene  of  the  Contention. 

"  Now  Guise  begins  those  deepe  ingendred  thoughts 

To  burst  abroad  those  neuer  dying  flames, 

Which  cannot  be  extinguisht  but  by  bloud. 

Oft  haue  I  leueld,  and  at  last  haue  learnd, 

That  perill  is  the  cheefest  way  to  happines, 

And  resolution  honors  fairest  aime. 

What  glory  is  there  in  a  common  good, 

That  hanges  for  euery  peasant  to  atchiue  ? 

That  like  I  best  that  flyes  beyond  my  reach. 

Set  me  to  scale  the  high  Peramides  (*.  e.,  pyramids), 

And  thereon  set  the  Diadem  of  Fraunce, 

He  either  rend  it  with  my  nayles  to  naught, 

Or  mount  the  top  with  my  aspiring  winges, 

Although  my  downfall  be  the  deepest  hell. 

For  this  I  wake  when  others  think  I  sleepe, 

For  this  I  waite,  that  scornes  attendance  else. 

The  gentle  King  whose  pleasure  vncontrolde 
\Veakneth  his  body,  and  will  waste  his  Realme, 


1  References  to  Marlowe  in  the  following  pages  will  give  the  line  number 
in  my  edition,  Clarendon  Press,  1910 ;  references  to  Contention,  True  Tragedy, 
and  the  1619  quarto  allude  to  page  and  line  in  the  Praetorius  facsimiles 
1886  —  1891 ;  references  to  Shakespeare's  plays:  including  2  and  3  Henry  VI 
follow  the  Oxford  Shakespeare. 

TRAXS.  CONN.  ACAD.,  Vol.  XVII.  11  JULY,  1912. 


158  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

If  I  repaire  not  what  he  ruinates : 
Him  as  a  childe  I  dayly  winne  with  words, 
So  that  for  proofe  he  barely  beares  the  name : 
I  execute,  and  he  sustaines  the  blame. 

Giue  me  a  look,  that  when  I  bend  the  browes, 
-    Pale  death  may  walke  in  furrowes  of  my  face : 
A  hand,  that  with  a  graspe  may  gripe  world, 
An  eare,  to  heare  what  my  detractors  say, 
A  royall  seate,  a  scepter,  and  a  crowne : 
That  those  which  doe  beholde,  thay  may  become 
As  men  that  stand  and  gase  against  the  Sunne. 
The  plot  is  laide,  and  things  shall  come  to  passe, 
Where  resolution  striues  for  victory." 
"  Anioy  and  Maine,  both  giuen  vnto  the  French, 
Cold  newes  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France, 
Euen  as  I  haue  of  fertill  England. 
A  day  will  come  when  Yorke  shall  claime  his  owne, 
And  therefore  I  will  take  the  Neuels  parts, 
And  make  a  show  of  loue  to  proud  Duke  Humphrey : 
And  when  I  spie  aduantage,  claime  the  Crowne, 
For  that's  the  golden  marke  I  seeke  to  hit : 
Nor  shall  proud  Lancaster  vsurpe  my  right, 
Nor  hold  the  scepter  in  his  childish  fist, 
Nor  weare  the  Diademe  vpon  his  head, 
Whose  church-like  humours  fits  not  for  a  Crowne : 
Then  Yorke  be  still  a  while  till  time  do  seme, 
Watch  thou,  and  wake  when  others  be  asleepe, 
To  prie  into  the  secrets  of  the  state, 
Till  Henry  surfeiting  in  ioyes  of  loue, 
With  his  new  bride,  and  Englands  dear  bought  queene, 
And  Humphrey  with  the  Peeres  be  falne  at  iarres, 
Then  will  I  raise  aloft  the  milke-white  Rose, 
With  whose  sweete  smell  the  aire  shall  be  perfumde, 
And  in  my  Standard  beare  the  Armes  of  Yorke, 
To  graffle  with  the  House  of  Lancaster : 
And  force  perforce,  ile  make  him  yeeld  the  Crowne, 
Whose  bookish  rule  hath  puld  faire  England  downe." 

(Contention,  p.  7,  1.  143  -  p.  8,  1.  166). 

In  addition  to  the  figures  just  discussed,  there  remain  four 
which  merit  attention :  Henry  VI,  Humphrey  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
Edward  IV,  and  the  young  Prince  Edward.  These,  in  contrast  with 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  159 

the  others,  are  good  characters.  The  prince  perhaps  need  not  be 
seriously  considered,  because  he  appears  relatively  little  and  owes 
his  romantic  courage  quite  as  much  to  the  chronicle  accounts  as  to 
the  poet's  original  portraiture.  The  other  three  figures  are  likely 
to  surprise  the  readers  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  by  their 
comparative  tameness.  It  was  in  the  presentation  of  the  good 
characters  that  Shakespeare  found  his  most  fruitful  opportunity 
to  improve  upon  the  delineation  of  the  earlier  plays.  It  is  remarkable, 
certainly,  that  in  the  Contention  the  picture  of  so  mean  a  creature 
as  Suffolk  remains  clearer  in  the  memory  than  that  of  Humphrey, 
the  real  hero  of  the  epoch  in  the  chronicle  accounts  and  a  particularly 
promising  subject,  one  would  say,  for  dramatic  presentation.  There 
is  no  question,  I  think,  that  the  Contention  fails  on  the  whole  to  make 
Duke  Humphrey  and  King  Henry  vivid  personalities,  and  that  the 
True  Tragedy  makes  the  capable  and  relatively  virtuous  Edward 
a  far  less  interesting  figure  than  either  the  villainous  Richard  or  the 
madly  impetuous  and  mischief -making  Warwick.  The  same  uncon- 
vincingness  in  the  normal  or  good  characters  must  strike  the  student 
of  the  acknowledged  work  of  Marlowe,  for  that  poet  appears  never 
to  have  been  able  to  separate  virtue  from  mediocrity  or  to  portray 
vivid  personality  except  in  the  prosecution  of  godless  and  desperate 
extravagance.  To  depict  sympathetically  and  persuasively  a  great 
man  strong  in  righteousness,  as,  for  example,  the  unknown  author 
of  the  contemporary  play  of  Woodstock  did  with  an  earlier  Duke  of 
Gloucester  very  similar  to  Humphrey  in  character  and  fate,  seems 
to  have  been  decidedly  beyond  the  range  of  Marlowe's  genius.  The 
representation  of  the  king's  well-meaning  brother  Edmund  in 
Edward  II  and  even  of  the  great  figure  of  Henry  of  Navarre  in  the 
Massacre  at  Paris  illustrates  the  same  failure  on  the  poet's  part  to 
rise  to  the  possibilities  latent  in  the  portrayal  of  simple  nobleness. 
It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  the  presentation  of  character  in 
the  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy  manifests  both  the  special 
merits  and  also  the  particular  limitations  of  Marlowe's  work.  I  think, 
moreover,  that  the  parallel  between  the  characters  of  the  plays  we 
are  considering  and  those  of  accepted  Marlovian  dramas  can  be  traced 
yet  farther.  Careful  readers  will  hardly  fail  to  notice  the  close 
resemblance  between  the  complex  quadrangle  of  relations  between 
Henry  VI,  Margaret,  Suffolk,  and  Prince  Edward  in  our  plays  and 
the  relations  of  Edwrard  II,  Isabella,  Young  Mortimer,  and  Prince 
Edward  in  Edward  II.  So,  too,  the  similarity  between  the  treat- 
ment of  Margaret's  experiences  at  the  French  court  and  those  of 
Isabella  in  Edward  II  seems  very  much  closer  than  historic  coin- 


160  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

cidence  would  make  natural.  It  would  perhaps  be  unduly  tedious 
to  dwell  at  length  upon  the  likenesses  between  the  two  sets  of  charac- 
ters ;  but  it  is  certainly  worth  remarking  that,  wherever  the  analogy 
seems  particularly  striking,  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  will  be 
found  to  be  merely  reproducing  history,  while  Edward  II  frequently 
departs  from  the  facts  recorded  by  the  chroniclers  in  order  to  conform 
to  our  plays.  Thus,  Edward  IV's  despatching  of  Warwick  to  France 
to  prevent  Louis  from  listening  to  Margaret's  appeals  is  a  well-known 
historic  occurrence  ;  but  Edward  II's  sending  of  Levune  on  a  similar 
mission  against  Isabella  appears  to  be  a  gratuitous  invention  suggested 
from  the  other  play.  Here,  then,  and  in  other  instances,  where  an 
account  of  debit  and  credit  can  be  set  up  between  Edward  II  and  the 
early  versions  of  the  Henry  VI  plays,  it  is  the  former  which  proves 
to  be  the  borrower.  Hence,  if  we  are  unwilling  to  admit  that  Marlowe 
was  influenced  in  Edward  II  by  reminiscence  of  his  own  earlier 
productions,  we  shall  be  driven  to  the  unlikely  conclusion  that  in 
his  most  mature  play  he  introduced  a  series  of  small  purposeless 
imitations  of  an  inferior  work  by  an  undetermined  author.1 


4.  Verbal  Parallels  in  the  Contention  and  True  Trag 

and  in  Accepted  Plays  of  Marlowe. 

Previous  critics  have  been  struck  with  the  close  parallel  between 
some  six  or  eight  passages  in  the  plays  under  discussion  and  corre- 
sponding passages  in  Marlowe's  acknowledged  dramas,  and  they 
have  explained  the  similarity  in  various  ways.  Dyce,  who  dis- 
covered five  of  the  most  important  resemblances,  believed  that  they 
indicated  Marlowe's  authorship  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy, 
in  part  at  least.2  Grant  White,  holding  the  opposite  view,  tried 
to  invalidate  this  testimony  by  the  citation  of  several  vague  parallels 
between  plays  by  Marlowe  and  others  by  Shakespeare.  Miss  Lee 
accepted  the  parallels  as  proof  of  Marlowe's  authorship  of  parts  of 
the  plays,  but  attempted  quite  fruitlessly  to  point  out  another  set 
of  parallels  with  the  works  of  Greene,  in  order  that  the  claim  of  that 
poet  might  also  be  supported.3  The  list  which  follows  will  show  that 
the  verbal  echoes  of  undoubted  Marlovian  dramas  in  the  Contention 
and  the  True  Tragedy  are  three  or  four  times  as  numerous  as  has 
been  hitherto  suggested.  It  is  important  to  discuss  with  some  care 
what  these  resemblances  really  indicate. 

1  For  a  further  discussion  of  this  point  see  p.  175  ff. 

*  Cf.  "  Some  Account  of  Marlowe  and  his  Writings  "  in  Dyce's  edition  of 
Marlowe  (1850,  etc.). 

3  Cf.  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society,  1875—76,  p.  248. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  161 

It  must  be  admitted  as  axiomatic  that  mere  similarity  or  identity 
of  language  between  two  works  does  not  of  itself  imply  common 
authorship.  In  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  for  example,  striking  repeti- 
tion of  the  wording  of  genuine  plays  in  a  doubtful  work  would  go 
far  to  discredit  the  claim  of  the  latter,  because  Shakespeare,  who 
was  often  imitated  by  other  writers,  was  never  much  disposed  to 
repeat  his  own  lines  and  phrases.  In  the  present  case,  before  the 
parallels  in  question  can  be  used  ta  support  the  theory  of  Marlowe's 
authorship  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  it  will  be  necessary 
first  to  prove  from  the  certainly  genuine  plays  that  Marlowe  was 
accustomed  to  reproduce  his  ideas  and  expressions  in  the  particular 
manner  in  which  our  plays  reproduce  them,  and  then  to  show  that 
the  passages  which  appear  in  the  plays  before  us  cannot  be  reasonably 
explained  as  an  alien  poet's  imitation  of  Marlowe's  work.  I  believe 
it  possible  to  establish  both  these  theses. 

Marlowe's  tendency  to  hark  back  to  a  favorite  image  or  idea  and 
to  ring  the  changes  upon  any  line  which  by  its  mellifluous  flow  had 
caught  his  fancy,  is,  indeed,  too  familiar  to  require  much  illustration. 
The  following  examples,  selected  rather  at  random  among  the  undis- 
puted plays,  will  serve  as  a  basis  for  comparison  with  the  Marlovian 
parallels  in  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy : 

(a)  Tamburlaine,    1.729:  "And  now  we  will  to  faire  Persepolis." 

,,  1.  745  :  "  To  follow  me  to  faire  Persepolis." 

,,  1.  754  :  "  And  ride  in  triumph  through  Persepolis. " 

1.  755  :  "  And  ride  in  triumph  through  Persepolis. " 
,,  1.  759  :  "  And  ride  in  triumph  through  Persepolis.  " 

(b)  Doctor  Faustus,  11.  1422-1430: 

"  Stand  stil  you  euer  moouing  spheres  of  heauen, 
That  time  may  cease,  and  midnight  neuer  come : 
Faire  Natures  eie,  rise,  rise  againe,  and  make 
Perpetuall  day,  or  let  this  houre  be  but 
A  yeare,  a  moneth,  a  weeke,  a  naturall  day, 
That  Faustus  may  repent,  and  saue  his  soule. 

The  starres  mooue  stil,  time  runs,  the  clocke  wil  strike 
The  diuel  wil  come,  and  Faustus  must  be  damnd 

Edward  II,  11.  2050-2056 : 

"  Continue  euer  thou  celestiall  sunne, 
Let  neuer  silent  night  possesse  this  clime, 
Stand  still  you  watches  of  the  element, 


162  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

All  times  and  seasons  rest  you  at  a  stay, 
That  Edward  may  be  still  faire  Englands  king : 
But  dayes  bright  beames  dooth  vanish  fast  away, 
And  needes  I  must  resigne  my  wished  crowne." 

(c)  Edward  II,  11.  343  f. : 

"  Ere  my  sweete  Gaueston  shall  part  from  me, 
This  He  shall  fleete  vpon  the  Ocean." 
Dido,  11.  1340  f.: 

"  And  let  rich  Carthage  fleete  vpon  the  seas. 
So  I  may  haue  Aeneas  in  mine  armes. " 

(d)  Edward  II,  11.  393-397 : 

"  Proud  Rome,  that  hatchest  such  imperiall  groomes, 

For  these  thy  superstitious  taperlights, 

Wherewith  thy  antichristian  churches  blaze, 

He  fire  thy  crazed  buildings  and  enforce 

The  papall  towers  to  kisse  the  lowlie  ground." 

Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  1210-1215 : 

"  Which  if  I  doe,  the  Papall  Monarck  goes 
To  wrack  and  antechristian  kingdome  falles. 
These  bloudy  hands  shall  teare  his  triple  Crowne, 
And  fire  accursed  Rome  about  his  eares. 
He  fire  his  erased  buildings  and  inforse 
The  papall  towers  to  kisse  the  holy  earth." 

Jew  of  Malta,  11.  2066 f.: 

"  I'le  helpe  to  slay  their  children  and  their  wiues, 
To  fire  the  Churches,  pull  their  houses  downe." 

(e)  Doctor  Faustus,  11.  1328  f. : 

"  Was  this  the  face  that  lancht  a  thousand  shippes, 
And  burnt  the  toplesse  Towres  of  Ilium  ?  " 
Dido,  11.  481  f.: 

"  In  whose  sterne  faces  shin'd  the  quenchles  fire, 
That  after  burnt  the  pride  of  Asia." 

(f)  Edward  II,  11.  117f.: 

"  Brother,  reuenge  it,  and  let  these  their  heads 
Preach  vpon  poles  for  trespasse  of  their  tongues." 
Ibid.,  1.  1326 : 

"  Strike  off  their  heads,  and  let  them  preach  on  poles. 

(g)  Massacre  at  Paris,  1.  289: 

"  Cheefe  standard  bearer  to  the  Lutheranes." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  163 

Ibid.,  I.  317  : 

"  Cheef  standard  bearer  to  the  Lutheranes." 

(h)  Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  524-530: 

"I,  but  my  Lord  let  me  alone  for  that, 

For  Katherine  must  haue  her  will  in  France  : 

As  I  doe  Hue,  so  surely  shall  he  dye, 

And  Henry  then  shall  weare  the  diadem. 

And  if  he  grudge  or  crosse  his  Mothers  will, 

He  disinherite  him  and  all  the  rest : 

For  He  rule  France,  but  they  shall  weare 'the  crowne." 
Ibid.,  11.  653-659: 

"  Thus  man,  let  me  alone  with  him, 

To  work  the  way  to  bring  this  thing  to  passe : 

And  if  he  doe  deny  what  I  doe  say, 

He  dispatch  him  with  his  brother  presently, 

And  then  shall  Mounser  weare  the  diadem : 

Thus,  all  shall  dye  vnles  I  haue  my  will, 

For  while  she  Hues  Katherine  will  be  Queene." 
(i)  Ibid.,  11.  938  f. : 

"  Come  on  sirs,  what,  are  you  resolutely  bent, 

Hating  the  life  and  honour  of  the  Guise  ?  " 

Ibid.,  11.  956 f.: 

"  But  are  they  resolute  and  armde  to  kill, 
Hating  the  life  and  honour  of  the  Guise  ?  " 

(j)  Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  992  f. : 

"  Now  doe  I  but  begin  to  look  about, 

And  all  my  former  time  was  spent  in  vaine." 

Ibid.,  11.  1011  f. :        "  Nay  then  tis  time 
To  look  about." 

In  the  instances  just  cited,  two  kinds  of  parallels  are  illustrated. 
In  some  cases,  as  in  (a),  (f),  (g),  (i),  (j),  a  striking  line  or  expression, 
which  has  already  been  used  once  in  a  play,  lingers  in  the  poet's 
mind  and  repeats  itself  later  either  from  carelessness  or  as  a  con- 
scious rhetorical  device.  In  the  other  cases,  though  identity  of 
wording  is  still  largely  present,  this  is  of  less  importance  than  the 
identity  of  idea.  In  these  latter  instances,  usually  occurring  in 
different  plays,  the  poet  happens  to  deal  with  similar  conceptions, 
and  his  mind  naturally  reacts  in  each  case  in  a  similar  manner, 
so  that  there  results  a  parallel  of  thought  and  language,  quite  un- 


164  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 


realized  by  the  writer,  but  more  clearly  demonstrative  of  unity  of 
authorship  than  any  number  of  mere  word  echoes. 

Now,  if  Marlowe  wrote  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  we 
should  normally  expect  to  find  both  these  types  of  parallels  there 
illustrated.  We  should  expect  to  find  the  poet  introducing  parallels 
of  language  and  thought  from  his  other  plays  —  particularly  from 
those  nearly  contemporary  with  the  ones  in  question  ;  and  we  should 
also  expect  to  find  him  continuing  the  same  practice  of  repetition 
within  the  new  plays  themselves.  That  is,  we  should  expect  to 
find  the  same  similarities  of  language  and  idea  between  the  different 
parts  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  as  between  those  plays 
and  accepted  works  like  the  Massacre  at  Paris  and  Edward  II.  This 
is  precisely  what  we  do  find.  It  will  be  well  to  take  up  first  the 
passages  which  show  the  plays  under  consideration  echoing  lines  in 
Marlowe's  acknowledged  dramas.  I  give  a  list  of  all  the  instances 
I  have  noted  in  the  order  in  which  they  appear.  The  references 
allude,  as  before,  to  the  page  and  line  number  in  the  Praetorius 
facsimiles  of  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  and  to  the  line  number 
in  my  edition  of  Marlowe  :  — 

/(l)  Contention,  p.  4,  1.  30: 

"  Her  lookes  did  wound,  but  now  her  speech  doth  pierce." 
Dido,  1.  1007  : 

"  Aeneas,  no,  although  his  eyes  doe  pearce." 

(2)  Contention,  p.  5,  1.  79: 

"  Ah  Lords,  fatall  is  this  marriage  canselling  our  states." 
Massacre  at  Paris,  1.  206: 

"  Oh  fatall  was  this  marriage  to  vs  all." 

(3)  Contention,  p.  7,  11.  149  f.  : 

"  And  when  I  spie  aduantage,  claime  the  Crowne, 

For  thats  the  golden  marke  I  seeke  to  hit." 
Ibid.,  p.  32,  1.  80: 

"  And  dogged  Yorke  that  leuels  at  the  Moone." 
Ibid.,  p.  53,  1.  94: 

"  If  honour  be  the  marke  whereat  you  aime." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  28,  1.  18: 

"  Ambitious  Yorke  did  leuell  at  thy  Crowne." 
Edward  II,  11.  1581  f.  : 

"  Thats  it  these  Barons  and  the  subtill  Queene 

Long  leueld  at." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  165 

Ibid.,  1.  2277: 

"It  is  the  chief est  marke  they  leuell  at." 

(4)  Contention,  p.  8,  1.  156: 

"  Watch  thou  and  wake  when  others  be  asleepe." 
Massacre  at  Paris,  1.  104: 

"  For  this  I  wake,  when  others  think  I  sleepe." 

(5)  Contention,  p.  12,  11.  49  f. : 

"  But  still  must  be  protected  like  a  childe, 
And  gouerned  by  that  ambitious  Duke." 
Edward  II,  11.  1336  f. : 

"  As  though  your  highnes  were  a  schoole  boy  still, 
And  must  be  awde  and  gouernd  like  a  child." 

(6)  Contention,  p.  13,  11.  59-61 : 

"  I  tell  thee  Poull,  when  thou  didst  runne  at  Tilt, 
And  stolst  away  our  Ladaies  hearts  in  France, 
I  thought  King  Henry  had  bene  like  to  thee." 
.Edward  II,  11.  2516-2518: 

"  Tell  Isabell  the  Queene,  I  lookt  not  thus, 
When  for  her  sake  I  ran  at  tilt  in  Fraunce, 
And  there  vnhorste  the  duke  of  Cleremont." 

(7)  Contention,  p.  17,  11.  15  f.  : 

"  (Night)  Wherein  the  Furies  maske  in  hellish  troupes, 
Send  vp  I  charge  you  from  Sosetus  lake." 
Tamburlaine,  1.  1999: 
"  Furies  from  the  blacke  Cocitus  lake." 

(8)  Contention,  p.  25,  1.  10: 

"  Euen  to  my  death,  for  I  haue  liued  too  long." 
Edward  II,  1.  2651 : 

"  Nay,  to  my  death,  for  too  long  haue  I  liued." 

(9)  Contention,  p.  25,  1.  17: 

"  For  sorrowes  teares  hath  gripte  my  aged  heart." 
Ibid.,  p.  42,  1.  12: 

"  See  how  the  panges  of  death  doth  gripe  his  heart." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  21,  1.  156: 

"  How  inlie  anger  gripes  his  hart." 
Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  542  f.  : 

"  A  griping  paine  hath  ceasde  vpon  my  heart : 

A  sodaine  pang,  the  messenger  of  death." 


166  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

(10)  Contention,  p.  27,  11.  9  f . : 

"  That  earst  did  follow  thy  proud  Chariot  wheeles, 
When  thou  didst  ride  in  tryumph  through  the  streetes." 

Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  990  f. : 

"  So  will  I  triumph  ouer  this  wanton  King, 
And  he  shall  follow  my  proud  Chariots  wheeles." 

Tamburlaine,  1.  754  (repeated  in  11.  755,  759)  : 
"  And  ride  in  triumph  through  Persepolis." 

(11)  Contention,  p.  33,  11.  134-136: 

"  The  wilde  Onele  my  Lords,  is  vp  in  Armes, 
With  troupes  of  Irish  Kernes  that  vncontrold 
Doth  plant  themselues  within  the  English  pale." 
Edward  II,  11.  969  f . : 

"  The  wilde  Oneyle,  with  swarmes  of  Irish  Kernes 
Liues  vncontroulde  within  the  English  pale." 

(12)  Contention,  p.  39,  1.  127: 

"  To  trie  how  quaint  an  Orator  you  \vere." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  12,  1.  2: 

"  Nay,  I  can  better  plaie  the  Orator." 

Ibid.,  p.  29,  1.  42 :  "  Full  wel  hath  Clifford  plaid  the  Orator." 
Tamburlaine,  1.  32 :   '  Or  looke  you,    I  should  play  the  Orator." 
Ibid.,  1.  328:  "  Our  swords  shall  play  the  Orators  for  vs."1 

(13)  Contention,  p.  49,  11.  6  f . : 

"  Lord  Say,  lacke  Cade  hath  solemnely  vowde  to  haue  thy  head. 
Say.    I,  but  I  hope  your  highnesse  shall  haue  his." 
Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  783  f. : 

"  For  he  hath  solemnely  sworne  thy  death. 
Muge.     I  may  be  stabd,  and  Hue  till  he  be  dead." 

(14)  Contention,  p.  57,  1.  53: 

"  Deepe  trenched  furrowes  in  his  frowning  brow." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  68,  11.  10  f. : 
"  The  wrinkles  in  my  browes  now  fild  with  bloud 
Were  likened  oft  to  kinglie  sepulchers." 

Edward  II,  1.  94 : 

"  The  sworde  shall  plane  the  furrowes  of  thy  browes." 

1  A  similar  line  is  found  in  Shakespeare's  Richard  III.  Ill,  v,  94  :  "  Doubt 
not,  my  lord,  I'll  play  the  orator." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  167 

Massacre  at  Paris,  \.  158 : 

"  Giue  me  a  look,  that  when  I  bend  the  browes, 
Pale  death  may  walke  in  furrowes  of  my  face." 

(15)  True  Tragedy,  p.  10,  1.  177: 

"  And  die  in  bands  for  this  vnkingly  deed." 
Edward  II,  1.  1289 : 

"  Weaponless  must  I  fall  and  die  in  bands  ?  " 

(16)  True  Tragedy,  p.  11,  1.  2101: 
"  Sterne  Fawconbridge 
Commands  the  narrow  seas." 

Ibid.,  p.  64,  1.  24: 

"  Is  past  in  safetie  through  the  narrow  seas." 
Edward  II,  1.  970 : 

"  The  hautie  Dane  commands  the  narrow  seas." 

(17)  True  Tragedy,  p.  21,  11.  139  f. : 

"  But  you  are  more  inhumaine,  more  inexorable, 

O  ten  times  more  then  Tygers  of  Arcadia  (i.  e.,  Hyrcania)  " 1 
Edward  II,  I.  2057  : 

"  Inhumaine  creatures,  nurst  with  Tigers  milke." 
Dido,  11.  1566  f. : 

"  But  thou  art  sprung  from  Scythian  Caucasus, 

And  Tygers  of  Hircania  gaue  thee  sucke." 

(18)  True  Tragedy,  p.  19,  1.  92: 

"  Off  with  the  Crowne  and  with  the  Crowne  his  head." 
Edward  II,  1.  2043  :   "  Here,  take  my  crowne,  the  life  of  Edward 
too." 

(19)  True  Tragedy,  p.  21,  11.  164  f.  : 

"  Off  with  his  head  and  set  it  on  Yorke  Gates, 
So  Yorke  maie  ouerlooke  the  towne  of  Yorke." 
Edward  II,  11.  1547  f. : 

"  For  which  thy  head  shall  ouerlooke  the  rest 
As  much  as  thou  in  rage  out  wentst  the  rest." 

(20)  True  Tragedy,  p.  23,  11.  45  f. : 

"  Sweet  Duke  of  Yorke,  our  prop  to  leane  vpon, 
Now  thou  art  gone  there  is  no  hope  for  vs." 

1  "  Arcadia,"    the  reading  of  the  editions  of  1595  and  1619,  is  evidently 
a  printer's  error.     The  1623  edition  gives  the  correct  "  Hyrcania." 


168  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  11221: 

"  Sweet  Duke  of  Guise,  our  prop  to  leane  vpon, 
Now  thou  art  dead,  heere  is  no  stay  for  vs." 

(21)  True  Tragedy,  p.  39,  11.  30  f. : 

"  Thus  farre  our  fortunes  keepes  an  vpward  Course, 
And  we  are  grast  with  wreathes  of  victorie." 

Ibid.,  p.  69,  11.  1 1 : 

"  Thus  still  our  fortune  giues  vs  victorie, 
And  girts  our  temples  with  triumphant  ioies." 

Massacre  at  Paris,  1.  794: 

"  And  we  are  grac'd  with  wreathes  of  victory." 

(22)  True  Tragedy,  p.  43,  1.  9: 

"  Your  highnesse  shall  doe  well  to  grant  it  then." 
Jew  of  Malta,  1.  274 : 

"  Your  Lordship  shall  doe  well  to  let  them  haue  it.' 

(23)  True  Tragedy,  p.  52,  1.  189: 

"  Did  I  impale  him  with  the  regall  Crowne." 
Edward  II.,  11.  1472  f. : 

"  The  royall  vine,  whose  golden  leaues 
Empale  your  princelie  head,  your  diadem." 

(24)  True  Tragedy,  p.  66,  11.  32  f. : 

"  But  whilst  he  sought  to  steale  the  single  ten, 
The  king  was  finelie  fingerd  from  the  decke." 
Massacre  at  Paris,  11.  146-148: 

"  Since  thou  hast  all  the  Gardes  within  thy  hands 

To  shuffle  or  cut,  take  this  as  surest  thing : 

That  right  or  wrong,  thou  deale  thy  selfe  a  King." 

(25)  True  Tragedy,  p.  68,  11.  6  f . : 

"  Thus  yeelds  the  Cedar  to  the  axes  edge, 
Whose  armes  gaue  shelter  to  the  princelie  Eagle." 
Edward  II.,  11.  818  f. : 

"  A  loftie  Cedar  tree  faire  flourishing, 

On  whose  top-branches  Kinglie  Eagles  pearch." 

(26)  True  Tragedy,  p.  68,  1.  9: 

"  Whose  top  branch  ouerpeerd  loues  spreading  tree. 
Edward  II.,  11.  2579  f. : 

"  I  stand  as  loues  huge  tree, 

And  others  are  but  shrubs  compard  to  me." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  169 

(27)  True  Tragedy,  p.  71,  11.  35-37  : 

"  See  brothers,  yonder  stands  the  thornie  wood, 
Which  by  Gods  assistance  and  your  prowesse, 
Shall  with  our  swords  yer  night  be  cleane  cut  downe." 
Tamburlaine,  11.  1397-1399: 

"  Shaking  their  swords,  their  speares  and  yron  bils, 
Enuironing  their  standard  round,  that  stood 
As  bristle-pointed  as  a  thorny  wood." 

(28)  True  Tragedy,  p.  76,  11.  50  f . : 

"  What  ?  will  the  aspiring  bloud  of  Lancaster 

Sinke  into  the  ground  ?   I  had  thought  it  would  haue  mounted." 

Edward  II,  1.  93 : 

"  Frownst  thou  thereat,  aspiring  Lancaster  ?  " 

Ibid.,  11.  2000  f. : 

"  Highly  scorning  that  the  lowly  earth 

Should  drinke  his  bloud,  mounts  vp  into  the  ayre.". 

In  a  number  of  the  passages  just  quoted  (e.  g.,  nos.  3,  9,  12,  14), 
parallels  appear  not  only  with  the  accepted  plays  of  Marlowe,  but 
also  between  the  various  parts  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy. 
In  the  following  additional  instances  the  plays  we  are  considering 
exhibit  parallels  for  which  the  acknowledged  plays  offer  no  suggestion 
or  counterpart : 

(29)  Contention,  p.  4,  1.  39: 

"  Till  terme  of  eighteene  months  be  full  expired." 
Ibid.,  p.  5,  11.  60 f.: 

"  Till  terme  of  18.  months  be  full  expirde." 

(30)  Contention,  p.  6,  11.  98-101 : 

"  The  common  people  swarme  about  him  straight, 
Crying  lesus  blesse  your  royall  exellence, 
With  God  preserue  the  good  Duke  Humphrey, 
And  many  things  besides  that  are  not  knowne." 
Ibid.,  p.  30,  U.  9-12: 

"  See  you  not  how  the  Commons  follow  him 
In  troupes,  crying,  God  saue  the  good  Duke  Humphrey, 
And  with  long  life,  lesus  preserue  his  grace, 
Honouring  him  as  if  he  were  their  King." 

(31)  Contention,  p.  6,  1.  104: 

"  lie  laie  a  plot  to  heaue  him  from  his  seate." 


170  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

Ibid.,  p.  6,  1.  Ill  : 

"  Weele  quickly  heaue  Duke  Humphrey  from  his  seate. 

(32)  Contention,  p.  6,  1.  108: 

"  And  put  them  from  the  marke  they  faine  would  hit.' 
Ibid.,  p.  1,  1.  150: 

"  For  thats  the  golden  marke  I  seeke  to  hit." 

(33)  Contention,  p.  7,  11.  144  f. : 

"  Cold  newes  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France, 
Euen  as  I  haue  of  fertill  England." 
Ibid.,  p.  31,  11.  34  f. : 

"  Cold  newes  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France, 
Euen  as  I  haue  of  fertill  England." 

(34)  Contention,  p.  23,  1.  171 : 

"  My  mind  doth  tell  me  thou  art  innocent." 
Ibid.,  p.  32,  1.  70: 

"  My  conscience  tells  me  thou  art  innocent." 

(35)  Contention,  p.  33,  11.  1181: 

"  If  our  King  Henry  had  shooke  hands  with  death, 
Duke  Humphrey  then  would  looke  to  be  our  King." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  19,  11.  86  f. : 
"  As  I  bethinke  me  you  should  not  be  king, 
Till  our  Henry  had  shooke  hands  with  death." 

(36)  Contention,  p.  40,  1.  165: 

"  You  bad  me  ban,  and  will  you  bid  me  sease  ?  " 
True  Tragedy,  p.  20,  1.  128: 
"  Bids  thou  me  rage  ?  why  now  thou  hast  thy  will." 

(37)  Contention,  p.  62,  1.  63: 

"  Make  hast,  for  vengeance  comes  along  with  them." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  38,  1.  61 : 
"  Awaie  my  Lord  for  vengeance  comes  along  with  him. 

(38)  True  Tragedy,  p.  33,  l.'3-p.  34,  1.  5: 

"  For  strokes  receiude,  and  manie  blowes  repaide, 
Hath  robd  my  strong  knit  sinnews  of  their  strength, 
And  force  perforce  needes  must  I  rest  my  selfe." 
Ibid.,  p.  68,  11.  25-27: 

"  For  manie  wounds  receiu'd,  and  manie  moe  repaid, 
Hath  robd  my  strong  knit  sinews  of  their  strength, 
And  spite  of  spites  needes  must  I  yeeld  to  death." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  171 

(39)  True  Tragedy,  p.  45,  1.  64: 

"  Her  lookes  are  all  repleat  with  males  tie." 
Ibid.,  p.  63,  I.  19: 

"  Thy  lookes  are  all  repleat  with  Maiestie." 
Contention,  p.  4,  1.  21  : 

"  Lend  me  a  heart  repleat  with  thankfulnesse." 

(40)  True  Tragedy,  p.  47,  I.  107: 

"  For  I  am  not  yet  lookt  on  in  the  world." 
Ibid.,  p.  78,  1.  22  : 

"  For  yet  I  am  not  lookt  on  in  the  world." 

(41)  True  Tragedy,  p.  52,  11.  135-143: 

"  tell  false  Edward  thy  supposed  king, 

That  Lewis  of  France  is  sending  ouer  Maskers 

To  reuell  it  with  him  and  his  now  bride. 

Bona.     Tell  him  in  hope  heele  be  a  Widower  shortlie, 

He  weare  the  willow  garland  for  his  sake. 

Queen.     Tell  him  my  mourning  weedes  be  laide  aside, 

And  I  am  readie  to  put  armor  on. 

War.     Tell  him  from  me,  that  he  hath  done  me  wrong, 

And  therefore  He  vncrowne  him  er't  be  long." 

Ibid.,  p.  56,  11.  64-66,  69  1,  74 1,  79  f. : 
"  tell  false  Edward  thy  supposed  king, 
That  Lewis  of  France  is  sending  ouer  Maskers, 
To  reuill  it  with  him  and  his  new  bride  .  .  . 
Tel  him,  quoth  she,  in  hope  heele  proue  a  widdower  shortly 
He  weare  the  willow  garland  for  his  sake  .  .  . 
Teh1  him,  quoth  shee,  my  mourning  weeds  be  Doone, 
And  I  am  readie  to  put  armor  on  ... 
Tell  him  quoth  he,  that  he  hath  done  me  wrong, 
And  therefore  lie  vncrowne  him  er't  be  long." 

(42)  True  Tragedy,  p.  59,  1.  52  f. : 

"  And  free  king  Henry  from  imprisonment, 
And  see  him  seated  in  his  regall  throne." 
Ibid.,  p.  63,  1.  58: 

"  And  pull  false  Henry  from  the  Regall  throne." 

(43)  True  Tragedy,  p.  65,  1.  3: 

"  Awaie  with  him,  I  will  not  heare  him  speake." 
Ibid.,  p.  72,  1.  50 : 

"  Awaie,  I  will  not  heare  them  speake." 


172  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

Even  though  one  rates  evidence  derived  from  parallel  passages 
at  its  very  lowest  value,  making  every  allowance  for  possible  coin- 
cidence, I  believe  that  the  cumulative  force  of  this  long  list  of  resem- 
blances must  go  very  near  to  proving  identity  of  authorship  between 
the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  and  the  plays  of  Marlowe.  In  the 
face  of  the  number,  complexity,  and  closeness  of  the  parallels  in  the 
first  list  (nos.  1—28)  Grant  White's  theory  of  mere  accident  seems 
now  entirely  indefensible.  And  reason  argues  hardly  less  strongly, 
I  think,  against  the  other  alternative  of  conscious  plagiarism.  Mar- 
lowe, to  be  sure,  was  a  much  imitated  writer.  Yet  it  is  notorious 
that  none  of  the  poet's  imitators  was  ever  able  to  raise  his  own  style 
near  enough  to  that  of  his  model  to  prevent  the  presence  of  the 
stolen  finery  striking  the  attention  of  any  careful  reader.  The 
probability  of  Marlowe's  authorship  of  the  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy  gains  in  force  very  considerably  upon  comparison  of  their 
Marlovian  parallels  with  the  conspicuous  borrowings  from  Tambur- 
laine  and  Doctor  Faustus  in  the  pre- Shakespearean  Taming  of  a 
Shrew.1  The  two  cases  are  fundamentally  different.  The  passages 
in  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  which  are  reminiscent  of  accepted 
plays  do  not  arouse  attention  in  their  contexts.  In  every  instance 
they  are  homogeneous  with  the  rest  of  the  speeches  in  which  they 
occur,  and  they  illustrate  the  same  habits  of  mind  shown  in  the 
parallels  between  the  genuine  plays.  On  the  other  hand,  the  borrow- 
ings from  Marlowe  in  the  Taming  of  a  Shrew  are  totally  different 
in  style  from  the  rest  of  the  play  and  incongruous  with  its  spirit. 
Of  this  unevenness,  indicating  the  presence  of  an  alien  mind,  no 
trace  is  found  in  the  dramas  we  are  discussing. 

A  strong  additional  proof  of  the  Marlovian  quality  of  the  Con- 
tention and  True  Tragedy  is  implied  in  the  list  of  parallels  (nos. 
29—43)  occurring  within  those  plays  alone.  Here  no  model  was 
furnished  by  other  plays  of  Marlowe.  Yet  the  distinctive  note  of 
Marlowe's  style  seems  clearly  apparent  in  the  more  conspicuous  of 
these  passages,  such  as  nos.  32,  33,  38,  39,  42  :  and  the  repetition 
of  wording  and  idea  is  in  these  cases  of  precisely  the  same  kind  as 
that  found  in  the  parallels  between  the  various  accepted  plays  (a — j) 
and  between  those  plays  and  ours  (nos.  1—28).  Here  we  have  a 
state  of  affairs  which  seems  quite  unexplainable  on  any  assumption 
of  plagiarism.  Even  if  we  admit  the  possibility  that  another  writer 
could  imitate  passages  in  Marlowe's  plays  with  the  delicate  fidelity 

1  A  detailed  list  of  these  parallels  is  given  in  Appendix  I  of  Prof.  Boas's 
edition  of  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,  1908. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  173 

to  verse  music  and  feeling,  and  yet  with  the  perfect  appropriateness 
to  the  new  context  which  appear  in  examples  1—28,  it  seems  utterly 
fantastic  to  imagine  that  this  writer  could  then  proceed  to  compose 
from  his  own  mind  other  lines  perfectly  suggestive  of  Marlowe  and 
to  vary  these  original  lines  in  precisely  the  manner  in  which  he  had 
varied  those  stolen  from  Marlowe.  No  poet,  it  may  probably  be  said, 
who  plagiarizes  largely  from  another,  will  plagiarize  from  himself 
in  the  same  manner  and  to  the  same  relative  extent.  Yet  no  one, 
I  think,  can  compare  such  parallels  as  those  cited  above  in  (b),  (c), 
(d),  in  (6),  (11),  (17),  and  in  (35),  (38),  (42)  without  feeling  that  in 
each  case  the  same  mind  has  been  at  work  both  in  the  original  con- 
ception of  the  idea  and  in  its  later  repetition.  To  conclude  otherwise 
would  be  to  assume  that  there  existed,  all  unknown  to  history,  an 
exact  intellectual  double  to  one  of  the  most  original  and  peculiar 
geniuses  in  English  literature. 

I  believe  that  Marlowe's  authorship  of  the  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy  is  sufficiently  attested,  in  so  far  as  the  parallel  passages  bear 
upon  the  question,  by  what  has  been  already  said.  There  is,  however, 
a  further  point  which  it  seems  improper  to  ignore,  since  it  offers 
positive  evidence  in  the  same  direction.  It  will  have  been  observed 
that  decidedly  the  greatest  number  of  the  resemblances  between  the 
Contention  and  True  Tragedy  and  the  canonical  plays  of  Marlowe  in 
the  list  given  on  pp.  164—169  refer  to  Edward  II  and  The  Massacre 
at  Paris.  Of  the  twenty-eight  parallels  there  cited,  fourteen  concern 
the  former  play  and  nine  the  latter.  The  obvious  inference  from 
this  is  that  these  four  dramas,  all  dealing  with  historical  themes, 
were  composed  within  relatively  short  limits  of  time.  It  is  important 
to  attempt  to  fix  the  precise  sequence  of  the  four  plays  in  question, 
since  the  theory  that  an  unidentified  author  imitated  Marlowe  in 
the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  is  tenable  only  on  the  assumption 
that  the  latter  plays  are  subsequent  to  those  from  which  they  appear 
to  borrow. 

Some  of  the  parallels  offer  evidence  on  this  question.  Wherever 
a  passage  appearing  in  two  plays  is  naturally  suggested  by  the  con- 
text in  one,  while  in  the  other  it  appears  out  of  keeping  or  unne- 
cessary to  the  argument,  I  think  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  passage 
is  original  in  the  former  instance  and  has  been  gratuitously  intro- 
duced in  the  second  either  by  a  trick  of  the  author's  memory  or  by 
the  conscious  imitation  of  a  later  writer.  Now,  in  regard  to  The 
Massacre  at  Paris,  though  the  material  for  inference  is  rather  scanty, 
the  probabilities  seem  to  favor  the  priority  of  that  play  to  The 
Contention  and  The  True  Tragedy.  For  example,  the  allusion  to  the 

TRANS.  CONN.  ACAD.,  Vol.  XVII.  12  JULY,  1912. 


174  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

"  proud  chariot's  wheels  "  in  the  tenth  parallel  is  perfectly  natural 
in  the  context  in  which  it  appears  in  the  Massacre.  Guise  is  referring 
to  Roman  life  in  a  carefully  sustained  simile : 

"  As  ancient  Romanes  ouer  their  Captiue  Lords, 

So  will  I  triumph  ouer  this  wanton  King, 

And  he  shall  follow  my  proud  Chariots  wheeles." 

In  the  case  of  the  Contention,  however,  the  allusion  to  the  chariot 
is  anachronistic  and  even  absurd,  for  Humphrey  is  speaking,  without 
any  suggestion  of  figurative  language,  of  his  own  wife  and  of  the 
present  time : 

"  Sweete  Nell,  ill  can  thy  noble  minde  abrooke 

The  abject  people  gazing  on  thy  face, 

That  earst  did  follow  thy  proud  Chariot  wheeles, 

When  thou  didst  ride  in  tryumph  through  the  streetes." 

May  we  not  here  feel  reasonably  sure  that  the  picture  of  the  Duchess 
Eleanor  driving  in  triumph  through  fifteenth-century  London  streets 
in  a  proud  chariot  with  the  abject  people  following  at  her  wheels  is 
due  to  a  mischievous  freak  of  the  poet's  memory,  which  suddenly 
diverted  his  attention  from  the  real  subject  and  caused  Humphrey's 
plain  speech  to  end  incongruously  with  the  repetition  of  a  remembered 
line  from  the  Massacre  and  another  from  Tamburlaine  ? 

There  is  one  other  parallel  which  seems  likewise  to  suggest  the 
earlier  composition  of  the  Massacre.  When,  near  the  close  of  that 
play,  Dumaine  says  of  his  brother  (1.  11221), 

"  Sweet  Duke  of  Guise,  our  prop  to  leane  vpon, 
Now  thou  art  dead,  heere  is  no  stay  for  vs," 

he  is  speaking  only  what  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion  justify,  for 
the  Guise's  party  is  crushed  and  the  speaker  himself  is  at  the  moment 
threatened  with  death.  However,  when  Edward  repeats  virtually 
the  same  words  in  the  True  Tragedy  (p.  23,  1.  45  f.), 

"  Sweet  Duke  of  Yorke,  our  prop  to  leane  vpon, 
Now  thou  art  gone  there  is  no  hope  for  vs," 

they  seem  decidedly  less  appropriate  to  the  speaker's  situation,  for 
Edward's  emotion  is  merely  personal  sorrow  at  his  father's  death, 
and  his  very  next  speech  shows  that  he  is  as  far  as  possible  from 
having  lost  political  hope : 

"  His  name  that  valiant  Duke  hath  left  with  thee  (i.  e.,  Richard), 
His  chaire  and  Dukedome  that  remaines  for  me."  (1.  56f.) 


The  Authorship  of  "King  Henry  VI."  175 

The  case  is  different  with  the  parallels  between  our  plays  and 
Edward  II.  When  Queen  Margaret,  enraged  at  the  mild  inasser- 
tiveness  of  Henry's  character  and  the  consequent  predominance  of 
Gloucester  and  his  Duchess  at  the  English  court,  exclaims  to  Suffolk 
(paraUel  6)  : 

"  I  tell  thee  Poidl,  when  thou  didst  runne  at  Tilt, 
And  stolst  away  our  Ladaies  hearts  in  France, 
I  thought  King  Henry  had  bene  like  to  thee, 
Or  else  thou  hadst  not  brought  me  out  of  France," 

the  words  are  admirably  adapted  to  the  speaker's  character  and  to 
the  facts  of  history.  The  chroniclers  all  give  special  attention  to  the 
magnificent  jousts  in  which  Suffolk  was  the  chief  figure,  both  during 
his  negotiations  with  the  French  king  for  Henry's  marriage  and  later 
when  he  returned  to  France  as  Henry's  representative  to  escort  the 
new  queen  to  England.  The  similar  lines  spoken  by  Edward  II  in 
his  distress, 

"  Tell  Isabell  the  Queene,  I  lookt  not  thus, 
When  for  her  sake  I  ran  at  Tilt  in  France, 
And  there  vnhorste  the  duke  of  Cleremont," 

add  a  desired  touch  of  romance  and  pathos  to  the  king's  figure,  but 
they  seem  to  be  quite  unjustified  by  history.  The  words  which 
naturally  suggested  themselves  in  connexion  with  Suffolk's  knightly 
accomplishments  seem  to  have  been  consciously  repeated  in  order 
to  lend  an  unhistoric  charm  to  the  personality  of  the  hero  of  a  later 
play.  So  far  wras  Edward  II  reaUy,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  with 
Isabella,  from  paralleling  the  chivalrous  feats  of  Suffolk,  that  a  very 
dark  cloud  was  thrown  over  the  wedding  and  coronation  ceremonies 
(January,  February,  1308)  by  the  obvious  degeneracy  and  effeminacy 
of  the  bridegroom.1 

In  the  O'Neill  passages,  again,  the  Contention  version  (parallel  11) 
seems  clearly  the  original,  suggested  by  the  historical  sources  and  by 
dramatic  propriety,  while  the  similar  lines  in  Edward  II  form  a  mere 
replica  which,  except  for  the  recollection  of  the  already  written 
Contention,  would  have  had  nothing  to  suggest  it.  The  name  O'Neill 
was,  indeed,  very  familiar  to  the  English  public  of  Marlowe's  day  in 
connexion  with  Irish  disturbances  because  of  the  activities  of  "  the  . 
great  O'Neill,"  as  Fabyan  calls  him,  who  was  created  Earl  of  Tyrone 
in  1543  after  thrice  invading  the  Pale.  But  the  lines  of  the  Contention, 


1  See  Chalfant  Robinson,  "  Was  King  Edward  the  Second  a  Degenerate  ?  " 
American  Journal  of  Insanity,  1910,  p.  454  f. 


176  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

"  The  wilde  Onele  my  Lords,  is  vp  in  armes, 
With  troupes  of  Irish  Kernes  that  vncontrold, 
Doth  plant  themselves  within  the  English  pale," 

perfectly  describe  the  situation  at  the  time  of  the  action  of  the  play 
Henry  O'Neill  (d.  1489)  was  at  this  period  a  conspicuous  figure  in 
Irish  affairs,  and  was  officially  recognized  by  England  in  1459.  The 
despatch  of  the  Duke  of  York,  in  1448,  to  quell  the  unrest  in  Ireland, 
the  remarkable  success  of  the  Duke,  and  the  consequent  devotion 
of  the  Irish  to  his  cause  during  the  English  civil  wars  were  facts  dwelt 
upon  at  considerable  length  by  all  the  chroniclers,  and  they  had  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  Yorkist  party.  The 
similar  lines  in  Edward  II,  on  the  other  hand, 

"  The  wilde  Onele,  with  swarmes  of  Irish  Kernes, 
Liues  vncontroulde  within  the  English  pale," 

must  be  regarded  as  a  mere  fabrication  of  the  poet.  No  O'Neill, 
living  at  this  period,  is  regognized  by  the  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
graphy. Nor  was  there  an  Irish  rebellion  at  the  time  wrhen  Gaveston 
was  sent  as  governor  to  Ireland.1 

Only  four  lines  after  the  O'Neill  passage  in  Edward  II,  Young 
Mortimer  cites  another  evidence  of  Edward's  misrule  (1.  970  f.)  : 

"  The  hautie  Dane  commands  the  narrow  seas, 
While  in  the  harbor  ride  thy  ships  vnrigd." 

Now  history  knows  nothing,  apparently,  of  any  Danish  interference 
with  the  English  seas  during  Edward  II's  reign.  But  the  corre- 
sponding line  in  the  True  Tragedy  (parallel  16) 

"  Sterne  Fawconbridge  commands  the  narrow  seas" 

alludes  to  a  prominent  actual  character  of  the  time  and  to  an  actual 
situation. 

In  these  cases  it  would  seem  preposterous  to  believe  that  histor- 
ically unfounded  lines  were  needlessly  invented  by  Marlowe  in 
Edward  II,  and  that  these  lines  were  then  later  found  to  fit  precisely 
the  historic  facts  presented  in  the  Henry  VI  plays.  The  debt  must 
lie  the  other  way,  as  the  evidence  discussed  on  pages  159  and  160 
also  suggests. 

1  /.  e.,  1308/9.  Later,  in  1315,  war  broke  out  in  connexion  with  Edward 
Bruce's  attempt  to  gain  the  Irish  crown,  and  the  O'Neills  appeared  on  his 
side  (cf.  T.  F.  Tout,  Political  History  of  England,  1216—1377,  p.  270).  At 
this  time  Gaveston  had  been  dead  three  years. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  ill 

Thus,  we  get  the  following  sequence  of  plays  :  Massacre  at  Paris — 
Contention — True  Tragedy — Edward  II.  Once  this  order  is  accepted, 
the  theory  that  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  were  written  by  an 
imitator  of  Marlowe  and  not  by  Marlowe  himself  becomes  indefen- 
sible, since  upholders  of  that  theory  would  be  obliged  to  assume  that 
the  plagiarist  first  succeeded  in  introducing  into  the  plays  we  are  con- 
sidering marvellous  imitations  of  the  spirit  and  language  of  Marlowe's 
earlier  dramas,  such  as  Tamburlaine,  The  Jew  of  Malta,  and  The 
Massacre  at  Paris ;  next  that  he  himself  composed  other  original 
passages  conspicuously  suggestive  of  Marlowe's  hand ;  and  then  that 
Marlowe  borrowed  copiously  from  these  passages  in  his  later  play 
of  Edward  II.  By  this  theory,  one  would  have  to  assume  such  a 
poetic  identity  between  the  two  authors,  each  writing  in  the  same 
style,  and  each  stealing  from  the  other  in  the  same  manner,  that 
the  two  would  constitute  a  kind  of  literary  syndicate,  To  any  one 
who  considers  Marlowe's  striking  individuality  and  his  aloofness 
from  all  his  dramatic  contemporaries,  no  conception  can  well  seem 
more  extravagant. 

5.  Metrical  evidence. 

The  imperfect  state  in  which  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
are  preserved  in  the  earliest  editions  of  1594/5  makes  it  impossible 
to  apply  metrical  tests  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  authorship 
with  even  the  doubtful  authority  which  such  tests  possess  in  the 
case  of  the  works  of  Shakespeare.  Yet,  after  allowing  for  the  in- 
conclusiveness  of  this  evidence,  the  results  obtained  by  tabulating 
the  various  metrical  criteria  seem  pretty  strongly  to  suggest  homo- 
geneity of  authorship  between  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
and  the  Marlovian  plays  of  about  the  same  date,  while  they  point 
yet  more  decisively  to  the  fact  that  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
cannot  have  been  written  by  the  author  of  the  new  passages  inserted 
in  the  revised  2  and  3  Henry  VI. 

JjBlank  verse,  as  written  by  Marlowe,  is  a  definitely  decasyllabic 
measure,  in  which  the  individual  line  is  still  unmistakeably  the  poetic 
unit.  Marlowe,  therefore,  avoids  run-on  lines,  in  which  the  division 
of  one  verse  from  the  nex,t  is  obscured  in  the  unity  of  sentence  or 
paragraph  ;  and  double-ending  lines,  in  which  the  normal  ten-syllable 
measure  is  varied  by  the  addition  of  a  more  or  less  strongly  stressed 
eleventh  syllablej  These  latter  features,  which  give  the  impression 
of  colloquial  ease,  grew  steadily  more  conspicuous,  as  dramatic  verse 
came  in  the  later  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  playwrights  to  be  re- 
garded less  as  a  medium  for  impassioned  lyric  declamation  and  more 


178  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

as  a  vehicle  of  real  conversation.  Run-on  lines  and  double  endings 
are  far  more  frequent  even  in  the  earliest  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
than  in  Marlowe's,  and  in  the  works  of  such  Jacobean  writers  as 
Fletcher  and  Massinger  they  predominate  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
make  the  blank  verse  of  these  writers  largely  lose  the  quality  of 
poetry  and  become,  like  much  of  Wordsworth's,  mere  measured 
prose.  The  change  indicated  is  in  great  measure  a  regular  evolution 
occasioned  by  a  change  in  the  purpose  and  tone  of  the  drama  from 
Marlowe's  time  to  Fletcher's ;  and  the  stylistic  peculiarities  of  Mar- 
lowe's verse  are  shared,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  several  of  the  more 
impassioned  writers  of  his  age — by  Kyd  and  Peele,  for  example.  The 
discussion  of  the  minutiae  of  versification  by  which  Marlowe's  in- 
dividual style  can  be  distinguished  even  from  that  of  his  immediate 
contemporaries  would  be  not  altogether  germane  to  the  present  sub- 
ject, and  would  carry  the  inquiry  unjustifiably  far  afield.  I  hope 
to  prosecute  this  investigation  in  another  place.  For  the  present, 
I  offer  the  statistics  below  as  proving  merely  that  the  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy  cannot  reasonably  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  the 
author  who  wrote  the  additions  to  these  plays  in  2  and  3  Henry  VI, 
while  fully  agreeing  with  the  theory  that  Marlowe  wrote  the  first  two 
pla^s  and  Shakespeare  the  additions. 

One  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  Marlowe's  verse,  an 
outgrowth  of  his  tendency  to  emphasize  the  division  of  lines  and  his 
dislike  of  double  endings,  is  the  frequent  appearance  of  two  weak 
syllables  in  the  final  foot.  This  pyrrhic  ending  gives  the  verse  a  kind 
of  dying  fall  which  very  markedly  emphasizes  its  close.  It  also 
permits  the  avoidance  of  a  double  ending  where  words  like  "  resolu- 
tion" or  "valiant"  conclude  the  line.  In  such  cases,  Marlowe  and 
the  author  of  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  normally  pronounce  every 
possible  syllable,  making  the  line  a  regular  pentameter,  whereas 
Shakespeare  and  the  author  of  the  additions  in  2  and  3  Henry  VI 
cause  the  fifth  foot  to  close  with  the  stressed  antepenult  of  the  word, 
and  run  the  remaining  "  -tion  "  or  "  -iant  "  together  as  a  single  super- 
fluous eleventh  syllableT^The  ordinary  Marlovian  pronunciation 
is  seen  in  the  line : 

"Before /we  part  /  with  our/  posses-  /tfi-on."  (Tamburlaine,  340) 
or 

"  Desirde  /  her  more,  /  and  waxt  /  outra-  /  gi-ous  "  (Edward  II,  857) 

/  The  usual  Shakespearean  scansion,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  in  the 
line  (Richard  III,  I,  1,  18): 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  179 

"  I  that  /  am  cur-  /  tail'd  of  /  this  fair  /  proper-  /  tion  '/  Marlowe, 
writing  this  last  line,  would  normally  have  omitted  two  of  the 
syllables.  "  I,  cur-  /  tail'd  of/this  fair / proper- / ti-on  "  or,  "  I  that/ 
am  cur-  /  tail'd  of  /  proper  /  ti-on  "  would  represent  the  regular 
Marlovian  rhythm. 

Marlowe's  avoidance  of  the  eleventh  syllable  and  his  fondness  for 
the  pyrrhic  fifth  foot  frequently  led  him  to  make  trisyllables  out 
of  awkward  final  dissyllables  such  as  "  England  "  by  the  insertion 
of  a  colorless  parasitic  vowel  before  the  liquid  consonant.  Thus, 
(Edward  II,  1.  581), 

"  But  can-  /  not  brooke  /  a  night  /  grown  mush-  /  (e)rump  /  (mush- 
room) " 

This  tendency  is  illustrated  in  the  second  line  of  a  couplet  which 
occurs  twice  in  the  Contention  (p.  7,  1.  145 ;  p.  31,  1.  35)  : 

"  Cold  newes  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France, 
Even  as  I  I  have  /  of  fer-  /  till  Eng-  (  (e}land." 

The  rhythm  of  the  italicized  verse,  quite  characteristic  of  Marlowe, 
was  clearly  displeasing  to  the  reviser,  for  in  each  of  the  corresponding 
lines  in  2  Henry  VI  he  has  altered  the  metrical  flow  according  to  his 
own  principles  of  prosody.  In  the  first  instance  (2  Henry  VI,  I,  i,  239) 
he  has  made  the  last  foot  a  regular  iambus  by  the  addition  of  a  color- 
less monosyllable : 

"  Even  as  /  I  have  /  of  fer-  /  tile  Eng-  /  land's  soil" 

In  the  second  case  (2  Henry  VI,  III,  i,  88),  he  has  an  eleven-syllable 
line : 

"  As  firm-  /  ly  as  /  I  hope  /  for  fer-  /  tile  Eng-  /  land." 

Since  no  alteration  of  meaning  is  involved  in  these  changes,  and  since 
the  revised  lines  are  not  inherently  more  musical  or  more  correct 
than  the  original,  it  is  clear  that  the  alteration  illustrates  the  dis- 
agreement between  the  stylistic  idiosyncracies  of  the  twdvx poets.. 


There  are  many  other  instances  in  which  lines  with  the  peculiar 
Marlovian  rhythm  in  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  have  been  recast 
in  2  and  3  Henry  VI  merely  in  order  to  avoid  the  pyrrhic  final  foot 
or  in  order  to  admit  the  eleventh-syllable  mannerism  of  the  reviser. 
In  the  following  cases  the  revised  form  seems  actually  inferior  to 
the  older  version  : 


Contention,  p.  32,  1.  100: 

"  Before  /  his  legs  /  can  beare  /  his  bo-  /  die  vp." 


180  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

2  Henry  VI,  III,  i,  190 : 

"  Before  /  his  legs  /  be  firm  /  to  bear  /  his  bo-  /  dy." 
Contention,  p.  37,  1.  59 : 

"  Of  a-  /  shie  sem-  /  blance,  pale,  /  and  blood-  /  (e)lesse." 
2  Henry  VI,  III,  ii,  162 : 

"  Of  a-  /  shy  sem-  /  blance,  mea-  /  gre,  pale,  /  and  blood-  /  less." 
Contention,  p.  38,  1.  93: 

"  Blunt  wit-  /  ted  Lord,  /  igno-  /  ble  in  /  thy  words." 
2  Henry  VI,  III,  ii,  210 : 

"  Blunt  wit-  /  ted  lord,  /  igno-  /  ble  in  /  demea-  /  nour." 
Contention,  p.  57,  1.  51 : 

"  Did  worke  /  me  and  /  my  land  /  such  cru-  /  ell  spight." 

2  Henry  IV,  V,  i,  70: 

"  That  Ii-  /  ving  wrought  /  me  such  /  excee-  /  ding  trou-  /  ble." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  5,  1.  55 : 

"  My  heart  /  for  an-  /  ger  breakes,  /  I  can-  /  not  speake." 

3  Henry  VI,  I,  i,  60 : 

"  My  heart  /  for  an-  /  ger  burns ;  /  I  can-  /  not  brook  /  it." 
True  Tragedy,  p.  49,  1.  39: 

"  Whose  wise-  /  dome  was  /  a  mir-  /  rour  to  /  the  world." 
3  Henry  VI,  III,  iii,  84 : 

"Whose  wis-  /  dom  was  /  a  mir  /  ror  to  /  the  wis-  /  est." 
Trve  Tragedy,  p.  62,  1.  35: 

"  With  what  /  secur'  /  ty  we  /  maie  doe  /  this  thing." 
3  Henry  VI,  IV,  vii,  52: 

"  By  what  /  safe  means  /  the  crown  /  may  be  /  reco-  /  ver'd." 
Trve  Tragedy,  p.  70,  1.  22: 

"  Women  /  and  chil-  /  dren  of  /  so  high  /  resolve." 
3  Henry  VI,  V,  iv,  50: 

"  Women  /  and  chil-  /  dren  of  /  so  high  /  a  cou-  /  rage." 
Trve  Tragedy,  p.  76,  i,  56 : 

"If  a-  /  nie  sparke  /  of  life  /  remaine  /  in  thee." 
3  Henry  VI,  V,  vi,  66: 

"If  a-  /  ny  spark  /  of  life  /  be  yet  /  remai-  /  ning." 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Marlowe  never  wrote 
eleven-syllable  lines  or  that  the  reviser  (Shakespeare)  never  employed 
the  pyrrhic  fifth  foot.  The  figures  below  would  at  once  dispel  such 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  181 

a  notion.  It  seems  quite  clear,  however,  that  the  normal  tendencies 
of  the  two  writers  were  distinctly  opposed  as  regards  the  use  of 
these  two  metrical  forms.  The  list  which  I  have  just  given  of  ten- 
syllable  lines  in  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  expanded  into  eleven- 
syllable  lines  in  the  revised  plays  might  be  greatly  increased  ;  but 

1  have  been  unable  to  find  even  a  single  instance  of  the  converse, 
where  an  eleven-syllable  line  in  the  original  version  has  been  recast 
as  ten  syllables. 

There  follows  a  list  of  the  percentages  of  pyrrhic  fifth  feet,  eleven- 
syllable  lines,  and  run-on  lines  in  three  of  Marlowe's  later  plays — 
Edward  II,  The  Massacre  at  Paris,  and  The  Jew  of  Malta ;  in  the 
Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy  ;  in  those  parts  of  2  and  J  Henry  VI 
not  found  in  the  earlier  plays  or  found  there  in  essentially  different 
form  ;  and  in  Shakespeare's  most  closely  connected  play,  Richard  III. 

Percent  Percent  Percent  Total  number 

pyrrhic  11 -syllable  run-on  of  metrical 

fifth  feet  lines  lines  lines 

Contention                            1—  4 —  4  +  1254 

2  Henry  VI                       11—  14—  10  2148 
(additional  matter) 

True  Tragedy  10  7  5  1865 

3  Henry  VI  8—  14—  7V2  1550 
(additional  matter) 

Edward  II  13V2  4V3  62/3  2519 

Massacre  at  Paris  14  2  7x/4  1039 

Jew  of  Malta  18—  3  10Y8  1811 

Richard  III  9  19+  13+  3412 

The  evidence  of  this  table  is,  on  the  whole,  quite  definite.  In  the 
small  percentage  of  eleven-syllable  lines  (less  than  four  percent  and 
seven  percent  respectively)  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  even 
in  their  corrupted  texts,  agree  closely  with  the  undisputed  plays 
of  Marlowe,  and  are  strikingly  at  variance  with  the  additional 
matter  of  the  1623  edition  (14  percent)  and  with  Richard  III  (19 
percent).  In  the  work  which  I  would  attribute  to  Marlowe — to 
put  the  converse  of  what  has  just  been  said — the  percentage  of 
ten-syllable  lines  out  of  the  total  number  scannable  as  pentameters, 
ranges  from  98  percent  in  The  Massacre  at  Paris  to  93  percent  in 
The  True  Tragedy.  The  average  is  well  above  95  percent.  In  the 
additional  matter  of  the  Henry  VI  plays,  however,  the  percentage 
of  ten-syllable  lines  is  only  86  and  in  Richard  III  only  81.  So 
too,  the  percentage  of  pyrrhic  fifth  feet  is  in  all  the  work  ascribed 


182  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

to  Marlowe  considerably  in  excess  of  the  percentage  of  eleven-syllable 
lines,  whereas  in  all  the  work  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  the  proportion 
is  reversed.  The  ratio  of  run-on  lines  bears  out  the  same  division 
with  two  easily  explainable  irregularities.  Normally  Marlowe  paused 
at  the  close  of  nearly  every  line  even  in  his  latest  plays.  In  the 
Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  only  about  five  percent  of  the  lines 
run  on ;  in  Edward  II  and  The  Massacre  at  Paris  only  about  seven 
percent.1  Shakespeare's  percentage  of  run-on  lines,  however,  even 
in  so  early  a  play  as  Richard  III,  is  over  thirteen.  Apparently, 
therefore,  we  should  expect  something  over  the  ten  percent  of  run- 
on  lines  in  the  additional  matter  in  2  Henry  VI,  and  considerably 
more  than  the  seven  and  a  half  percent  of  J.  Henry  VI.  However, 
this  exception  is  only  superficial.  The  figures  are  based  on  the 
total  number  of  lines  added  or  materially  altered  in  the  1623  edition, 
but  the  opportunity  for  the  reviser  to  insert  run-on  lines  occurred 
almost  exclusively  in  new  passages  extending  to  several  verses. 
In  3  Henry  VI,  especially,  the  reviser's  work  consists  very  largely 
of  single  new  lines,  almost  necessarily  end-stopped,  because  not  closely 
consecutive  with  the  old  matter ;  and  of  old  lines  rewritten,  where 
the  original  pauses  were  for  the  most  part  retained.  If  the  per- 
centages of  run-on  lines  in  the  supposedly  Shakespearean  part  of 
2  and  3  Henry  VI  were  based  entirely  upon  the  number  of  lines 
where  the  reviser  had  a  fair  opportunity  of  arranging  verse  pause 
according  to  his  own  ear,  the  proportion  would  be  found  very  mate- 
rially in  excess  of  that  given  in  the  table. 

The  figures  in  the  table  contain,  indeed,  only  one  serious  discrep- 
ancy. That  occurs  in  the  ratio  of  pyrrhic  fifth  feet  in  the  Contention 
and  in  the  additional  matter  of  2  Henry  VI  respectively.  Since  Mar- 
lowe uses  the  mannerism  in  question  much  more  frequently  than 
Shakespeare,  one  would  expect  the  percentages  of  seven  for  the 
Contention  and  eleven  for  the  "  new  "  matter  to  be  reversed.  Rules 
relating  to  metrical  tests  are  doubtless  particularly  subject  to  ex- 
ceptions, and  it  may  be,  of  course,  that  the  irregularity  here  is  only 
accidental.  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that  this  apparent  dis- 
crepancy lends  weight  to  the  inference,  which  on  other  grounds 
amounts  to  practical  certainty,  that  the  1254  lines  printed  in  the 
Contention  give  a  much  abbreviated  and  corrupted  version  of  Mar- 
lowe's manuscript,  whereas  the  large  number  of  new  and  altered 

1  It  seems  almost  certain  that  the  relatively  high  percentage  of  run-on 
lines  in  The  Jew  of  Malta  is  due  to  the  serious  alteration  which  that  play 
suffered  between  Marlowe's  death  and  its  publication  in  1633. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  183 

lines  in  2  Henry  VI  (2148)  include  not  only  Shakespeare's  revisions, 
but  also  a  very  considerable  amount  of  original  matter  not  represented 
in  the  Contention.* 

6.  How  far  do  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  represent 
Marlowe's  original  text? 

In  the  last  section  it  was  suggested  that,  although  the  evidence 
of  metre  in  general  strongly  confirms  the  idea  that  the  Contention 
and  True  Tragedy  were  written  by  Marlowe  and  altered  by  Shake- 
speare into  2  and  3  Henry  VI,  at  least  one  metrical  consideration 
indicates  that  Marlowe's  share  in  the  performance  is  not  wholly 
represented  in  the  1594/5  text.  Evidence  of  another  kind,  now  to 
be  discussed,  points  in  the  same  direction,  justifying  the  assumption 
that  the  1623  version  of  the  plays,  besides  including  for  the  first 
time  the  alterations  of  Shakespeare,  also  represented  a  purer  and 
more  complete  copy  of  the  Mario vian  work  than  Millington,  the 
publisher  of  the  1594/5  quartos,  was  able  to  acquire. 

Though  there  appears  not  a  shadow  of  likelihood  of  collaborationx 
in  the  original  composition  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  there 
is  a  practical  certainty  of  contamination  of  Marlowe's  text./  No 
intelligent  reader  will  probably  desire  to  hold  so  careful  a  metrist 
as  Marlowe  responsible  for  the  five  percent,  or  more,  of  totally 
unscannable  lines  in  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  or  for  the  three 
percent  in  The  Massacre  at  Paris  and  four  percent  in  The  Jeu>  of 
Malta.  Moreover,  since  it  is  known  that  inferior  matter,  not  by 
Marlowre,  was  injected  into  Tamburlaine  and  Doctor  Faustus,  sub- 
sequent to  their  original  composition,  is  it  not  impossible  that  spuri- 
ous scenes  may  have  been  added  to  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
even  before  they  were  revised  by  Shakespeare. 

The  unusual  excellence  of  the  Folio  text  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in- 
clines us  to  estimate  too  highly  the  accuracy  of  the  extant  versions  of 
the  works  of  other  dramatists  of  the  period.  Shakespeare's  practical 
connexion  with  the  company  that  acted  his  plays  was  productive 
to  the  poet  of  many  benefits,  both  literary  and  temporal.  Among 
others,  it  protected  the  acting  version  of  his  plays  from  outside  inter- 
ference, made  sure  that  such  changes  as  might  from  time  to  time 
become  commercially  desirable  should  during  his  life  be  made  by  the 
poet  himself,  and  after  his  death  procured  the  careful  editing  of  the 
genuine  texts  by  those  who  knew  most  about  them.  Thus  Shake- 
speare's position  in  his  company  and  the  friendly  services  of  his 

1  For  a  further  discussion  of  this  point,  see  pp.  184  —  188. 


184  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

"  fellows,"  Hemings  and  Condell  gained  for  his  works  the  same 
textual  purity  which  Ben  Jonson  obtained  by  the  unusual  expedient 
of  personal  revision  and  publication. 

With  the  dramas  of  Marlowe,  Kyd,  Greene,  and  other  popular 
writers  not  connected  with  particular  companies,  the  case  is  very 
different.  For  these  poets  the  power  of  ensuring  the  form  of  their 
productions  ceased  when  the  plays  were  once  sold  to  an  acting 
company.  Yet  a  popular  play  was  likely  to  need  frequent  reno- 
vation in  the  eyes  of  the  company's  manager,  and  the  latter  would 
be  likely  to  turn  the  manuscript  over  for  revision  to  some  hack  in 
his  employ — often,  doubtless,  to  one  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
purposes  of  the  original  poet.  Moreover,  there  was  small  chance 
that  a  valuable  stage  play  would  reach  the  press  even  in  the  modi- 
fied form  in  which  the  actors  presented  it;  for  the  companies  cer- 
tainly frowned  on  publication.  Therefore,  a  very  large  number  of 
the  dramas  of  Marlowe  and  his  contemporaries  were  printed  sur- 
reptitiously from  damaged,  imperfect,  or  superseded  drafts  less 
authoritative  even  than  the  playhouse  copies. 

In  the  case  of  no  play  of  Marlowe,  not  even  in  the  case  of  Edward  II, 
which  is  least  corrupt,  can  we  feel  assurance  that  there  has  survived 
a  text  based  upon  the  author's  original  manuscript  and  comparable 
in  authority  with  the  texts  of  the  Shakespeare  and  Jonson  Folios. 
The  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  are  particularly  imperfect.  The 
dubious  authenticity  of  the  printed  text  should,  therefore,  be  kept 
in  mind  lest  the  occasional  degeneration  of  the  poetry  into  rank 
doggerel  or  the  sudden  weakening  of  the  dialogue  be  given  undue 
weight  in  judging  the  plays.  It  is  largely  on  the  basis  of  this  textual 
impurity  that  the  theory  of  double  or  triple  authorship  of  our  plays 
has  arisen,  the  tendency  being  to  ascribe  to  one  poet  what  has  sur- 
vived more  or  less  in  its  original  state,  while  assigning  to  another 
whatever  the  theatrical  manipulator  and  the  printer's  devil  have 
junited  in  deforming. 


/  Several  parallels  to  passages  in  Marlowe's  accepted  dramas  occur 
in  lines  of  2  and  3  Henry  VI  not  found  in  the  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy  versions : 

2  Henry  VI,  I,  ii,  15  f. : 

/        "  And  never  more  abase  our  sight  so  low 

As  to  vouchsafe  one  glance  unto  the  ground." 

Edward  II,  1.  879  f . : 

"  Whose  mounting  thoughts  did  never  creepe  so  low, 
As  to  bestow  a  looke  on  such  as  you." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  185 

2  Henry  VI,  I,  iii,  83: 

"  She  bears  a  duke's  revenues  on  her  back."  l 
Edward  II,  1.  704 : 

"  He  weares  a  lords  revenewe  on  his  back." 

3  Henry  VI,  I,  ii,  28-31  : 

"  And,  father,  do  but  think 

How  sweet  a  thing  it  is  to  wear  a  crown, 

Within  whose  circuit  is  Elysium, 

And  all  that  poets  feign  of  bliss  and  joy." 

Tamburlaine,  11.  763—765 : 

"  I  thinke  the  pleasure  they  enioy  in  heaven 
Can  not  compare  with  kingly  ioyes  in  earth, 
To  weare  a  Crowne  enchac'd  with  pearle  and  golde." 

Ibid.,  11.  863,  879  f. : 

"  The  thirst  of  raigne  and  sweetnes  of  a  crowne — 

That  perfect  blisse  and  sole  felicitie, 

The  sweet  fruition  of  an  earthly  crowne." 

3  Henry  VI,  II,  iii,  56: 

"  Forslow  no  longer;  make  we  hence  amain." 
Edward  II,  1.  1138 : 

"  Forslowe  no  time,  sweet  Lancaster,  lets  march." 
3  Henry  VI,  II,  v,  14  f.  : 

"  These  arms  of  mine  shall  be  thy  winding-sheet ; 

My  heart,  sweet  boy,  shall  be  thy  sepulchre." 

Jew  of  Malta,  1.  1192: 

"  These  armes  of  mine  shall  be  thy  Sepulchre." 

There  would  thus  seem,  on  prima  facie  evidence  and  on  the  testi- 
mony of  parallels,  very  good  reason  to  believe  that  Millington's 
version  of  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  printed  in  1594/5,  gave 
a  corrupt  text  of  the  plays  and  omitted  certain  passages  belonging 
to  Marlowe's  original  draft.  This  suspicion  is  rendered  almost  a 
certainty  when  we  consider  the  intermediate  version  printed  by 
Pavier  in  1619.  In  the  preceding  pages  there  has  been  little  occasion 
to  mention  Pavier's  edition,  which  inherently  possesses  very  small 


1  See  p.  187. 


186  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

importance.  No  just  ground  exists  for  supposing  either  that  this 
edition  represents  an  independent  recension  of  the  plays  or  that  it 
includes  any  of  Shakespeare's  alterations.  Pavier  doubtless  used  as 
basis  for  his  printer's  "  copy  "  the  text  of  Millington,  of  which  the 
copyright  was  in  his  possession.  In  the  case  of  the  Contention,  he 
increased  the  total  number  of  lines  by  some  eight  or  ten ;  in  the 
True  Tragedy  he  added  two  new  lines,  but  omitted,  presumably  by 
accident,  two  of  the  old  ones.  In  the  main  essentials,  however,  the 
text  of  Pavier  is  the  text  of  Millington  ;  and  the  failure  of  the  former 
to  make  use  of  the  hundreds  of  new  lines  by  Shakespeare,  in  spite 
of  his  fraudulent  insertion  of  Shakespeare's  name  on  the  title-page, 
is  conclusive  evidence  that  he  had  no  access  to  the  Shakespearean 
version  of  the  dramas  7j 

Yet  Pavier 's  edition  is  not  a  mere  reprint  of  either  of  Millington 's, 
as  Millington's  1600  edition  is  a  reprint  of  his  1594/5  text.  Four 
brief  passages  in  the  Contention  are  given  by  Pavier  in  rather  longer 
and  more  satisfactory  form,  and  about  two  hundred  distinct  changes 
of  word  or  phrase  occur  through  the  two  parts,  exclusive  of  mere 
correction  of  misprints  and  variation  of  spelling.  A  careful  list  of 
the  variant  readings  of  ed.  1619  will  be  found  in  the  introductions 
to  the  Praetorius  facsimiles  of  the  Whole  Contention  (1886).  Study 
of  these  variants  makes  it  clear  that  Pavier's  edition,  though  mainly 
based  on  Millington's,  must  have  had  also  another  source  independent 
both  of  the  Millington  quartos  and  of  the  Shakespearean  version 
of  the  plays.  Thus,  in  the  four  passages  of  the  Contention,  previ- 
ously mentioned,  where  ed.  1619  notably  amplifies  the  text  of  1594, 
the  later  edition  often  approaches  comparatively  close  to  the  version 
of  1623.  Yet  it  is  quite  certain  that  ed.  1619  cannot  here  be  merely 
a  corrupted  rendering  of  the  Shakespearean  text,  for  it  contains 
matter  not  found  in  either  of  the  other  versions.  For  example,  in 
York's  list  of  the  descendants  of  Edward  III  (2  Henry  VI,  II,  ii, 
9  ff.),  the  1623  Folio  differs  very  radically  from  the  quarto  of  1594 ; 
and  the  1619  text,  while  agreeing  in  places  with  each  of  the  others, 
is  in  some  respects  quite  independent  of  both.  The  progeny  of  the 
Black  Prince  is  fully  stated,  by  ed.  1619  alone  (Facsimile,  p.  231)  : 
"  Now  Edward  the  blacke  Prince  dyed  before  his  Father,  leaving 
behinde  him  two  sonnes,  Edward  borne  at  Angolesme,  who  died 
young,  and  Richard  that  was  after  crowned  King,  by  the  name  of 
Richard  the  second."  1  This  Edward  of  Angouleme,  though  duly 


1  The  suggestion  that    Edward  of  Angouleme  survived  his  father  is,  of 
course,  incorrect. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  187 

mentioned  by  Holinshed,  is  entirely  ignored  in  both  the  other  versions 
of  the  play.-^ 

In  this  same  passage,  ed.  1619  reverses  the  order  of  Edward  Ill's 
sixth  and  seventh  sons,  as  given  in  the  other  versions.  Both  in  the 
Contention  and  again  in  the  True  Tragedy,  the  1619  edition  adds./ 
a  line,  apparently  quite  genuine,  which  does  not  appear  elsewhere.1 
It  prints  in  the  obviously  correct  sequence  another  line,  clearly 
misplaced  in  the  edition  of  1594  and  entirely  omitted  in  that  of 
1623  (Part  I  of  Whole  Contention,  p.  34,  fifth  line  from  top  of  page)  : 

"And  burnes  and  spoiles  the  Country  as  they  go." 

Moreover,  it  inserts  for  the  first  time  one  of  the  lines  found  in  the 
1623  version,  but  not  in  that  of  Millington,  which  verbal  resemblance 
to  Edward  II  would  indicate  to  be  of  Marlowe's  composition  (Part 
I  of  Whole  Contention,  p.  12)  : 

"  She  beares  a  Dukes  whole  revennewes  on  her  backe."  2 

/  The  only  reasonable  conclusion  from  the  state  of  the  1619  text 
seems  to  be  that  Pavier,  who  shows  no  acquaintance  whatever  with 
any  of  the  characteristically  Shakespearean  alterations  in  the  plays, 
did  have  access  to  some  version  of  the  Marlovian  text  different  in 
a  number  of  particulars  from  that  printed  by  Millington.  Since  the  / 
influence  of  this  other  version  tends  on  the  whole  to  bring  Pavier's 
edition  closer  than  Millington's  to  that  of  1623,  we  are  doubtless 
justified  in  inferring  that  the  discrepancy  between  Marlowe's  original 
and  the  version  of  Shakespeare  was  less  broad  than  the  text  of  the 
Millington  quartos  would  suggest.  _} 

fit  is  by  no  means  to  be  supposed,  I  think,  that  all  the  necessary 
corrections  of  the  Millington  text,  or  even  all  the  better  readings 
accessible  to  Pavier  in  manuscript,  are  embodied  in  the  1619  edition. 
The  chief  value  of  that  edition  lies  merely  in  the  fact  that  it  furnishes 
a  rough  measure  of  the  inaccuracy  of  the  earlier  quartos,  and  proves 
the  existence  of  some  other  source  independent  of  the  two  important 
printed  versions  of  1594/5  and  1623.  That  Pavier  made  full  use  of 


1  The  new  lines  are  those  italicized  in  the  following  passages :  Part  I  of 
W hole  Contention,  p.  35, 

"  Vnder  the  title  of  lohn  Mortimer, 

(For  he  is  like  him  every  kinde  of  way)  "  and 

Part  II  of  Whole  Contention,  p.  62, 

"  For  I  will  buz  abroad  such  Prophesies 
Vnder  pretence  of  outward  seeming  ill." 

2  See  p.   185. 


188  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

that  source  is  highly  improbable,  since  he  seems  clearly  to  have 
printed  from  one  of  Millington's  editions,  merely  correcting  that 
text  here  and  there  from  the  results  of  an  inattentive  collation  of  the 
manuscript.  It  is  worth  noting  that  extensive  changes  in  ed.  1619 
appear  only  in  the  first  two  acts  of  the  earlier  play  (the  Contention). 
For  all  the  rest  of  the  work  of  collator  seems  to  have  contented 
himself  with  the  insertion  of  one  or  two  omitted  lines  and  the 
alteration  of  an  occasional  single  word,  doubtless  marking  his  cor- 
rections in  the  margin  of  a  copy  of  Millington's  text  as  he  glanced 
carelessly  through  the  manuscript.  Ji 


II.  THE  GREEXE-PEELE  MYTH. 

\  Near  the  close  of  Robert  Greene's  last  work,  Greens  Groats-worth 
of  Wit,  bought  with  a  Million  of  Repentance,  is  printed  a  letter  ad- 
dressed "  To  those  Gentlemen,  his  Quondam  acquaintance,  that 
spend  their  wits  in  making  Plaies."  Upon  a  complete  misinter- 
pretation of  this  passage,  which  altogether  extends  to  about  three 
pages,  is  based  alone  the  current  idea  that  Greene  and  Pee]e 
had  a  concern,  along  with  Marlowe,  in  the  earlier  version  of  2  and  3 
Henry  VI.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  interest  in  an  entirely 
incidental,  though  important,  allusion  to  Shakespeare  has  tended 
to  blind  readers  to  the  true  significance  of  the  document,  and  has 
led  to  wholly  unfounded  conclusions.  _ 

]  Greene's  main  purpose  is,  indeed,  made  sufficiently  clear  in  the 
heading.  To  his  former  acquaintances,  who,  like  Greene,  "  spend 
their  wits  in  making  plays  "  and  of  whom  three  are  specifically  ad- 
dressed, Greene  wishes  "  a  better  exercise,"  that  is,  a  more  profit- 
able occupation  and  the  avoidance  thereby  of  the  extremities 
brought  upon  the  writer,  as  he  asserts,  by  his  connection  with  the 
ungrateful  trade  of  playwright.  The  purpose,  therefore,  of  these 
last  words,  written  by  Greene  in  his  poverty  and  sickness,  was  not, 
as  it  is  generally  explained,  the  expression  of  a  mean-spirited  grudge 
against  Shakespeare  because  of  a  paltry  piece  of  borrowing  by  that 
poet.  The  purpose  was  rather  the  arraignment  of  the  very  unfair 
relations  existing  in  Greene's  day  between  the  writers  of  plays, 
nearly  always  dependent  and  necessitous,  and  the  prosperous  actors 
who  built  their  fortunes  upon  the  ill-paid  product  of  the  others' 
genius.  The  allusion  to  Shakespeare,  which  has  so  much  distorted 
the  view  of  critics,  is  quite  subordinate,  and  it  certainly  does  not 
contain  the  slightest  possible  suggestion  that  Shakespeare  had 
plagiarized  from  Greene,  either  in  Henry  VI  or  elsewhere. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  189 

It  is  generally  agreed — rightly,  I  think — that  the  three  authors 
addressed  by  Greene  in  the  passage  under  discussion  are  first  Mar- 
lowe, "  famous  gracer  of  Tragedians,"  whose  supposed  atheism  and 
Machiavellianism  are  dwelt  upon  in  rather  malicious  manner ;  then  i 
Nash,  "  young  luvenall,  that  byting  Satyrist,  that  lastlie  with  mee 
together  writ  a  Comedie"  ;  and  finally  Peele.  The  address  to  the  last 
and  the  general  admonition  which  follows  must  be  quoted  entire, 
since  they  include  the  pith  of  the  letter:^/ 

'*•  And  thou  no  lesse  deseruing  then  the  other  two,  in  some  things 
rarer,  in  nothing  inferiour ;  driuen  (as  my  selfe)  to  extreame  shifts ; 
a  little  haue  I  to  say  to  thee :  and  were  it  not  an  idolatrous  oth, 
I  would  sweare  by  sweet  S.  George,  thou  art  unworthie  better  hap, 
sith  thou  dependest  on  so  meane  a  stay.  Base  minded  men  al  three 
of  you,  if  by  my  miserie  ye  be  not  warned ;  for  unto  none  of  you 
(like  me)  sought  those  burres  to  cleaue :  those  Puppits  (I  meane) 
that  speake  from  our  mouths,  those  Anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours. 
Is  it  not  strange  that  I,  to  whom  they  al  haue  beene  beholding :  is 
it  not  like  that  you,  to  whome  they  all  haue  beene  beholding,  shall 
(were  ye  in  the  case  that  I  am  now)  be  both  at  once  of  them  forsaken  ? 
Yes,  trust  them  not :  for  there  is  an  vpstart  Crow,  beautified  with 
our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygers  heart  wrapt  in  a  Players  hide, 
supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bumbast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best 
of  you :  and  being  an  absolute  Johannes  factotum,  is  in  his  owne 
conceit  the  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie.  O  that  I  might  intreate 
your  rare  wits  to  be  imployed  in  more  profitable  courses  ;  &  let  these 
Apes  imitate  your  past  excellence,  and  neuer  more  acquaint  them 
with  your  admired  inventions.  I  know  the  best  husband  of  you 
all  wil  neuer  proue  an  Vsurer,  and  the  kindest  of  them  all  wil  neuer 
prooue  a  kinde  nurse  :  yet,  whilst  you  may,  seeke  you  better  Maisters  ; 
for  it  is  pittie  men  of  such  rare  wits,  should  be  subject  to  the  plea- 
sures of  such  rude  groomes."  1_J 

LThe  "  extreame  shifts  "  to  which  Peele  was  driven  by  his  poverty 
were  notorious  in  his  day  and  furnished  the  subject  of  many  contem- 
porary anecdotes.2  Greene's  comment  is  pointed  enough :  "  thou 
art  unworthie  better  hap,  sith  thou  dependest  on  so  meane  a  stay"  ; 
namely,  on  the  sorry  recompense  offered  by  the  players  to  their  poets. 
Base-minded  men,  he  goes  on,  they  must  all  be  if  they  are  not 
warned  by  Greene's  misery,  for  none  of  them  has  been  so  much 
solicited  in  the  past  as  Greene,  by  "  those  burres  .  .  .  those  Puppits 

1  Shakspere  Attusion- Books,  Part  I,  ed.  C.  M.  Ingleby,  1874,  p.  29-31. 

2  Cf.  The  Merrie  conceited  Jests  of  George  Peele,  Gent.,  1607. 
TEAKS.  CONN.  ACAD.,  Vol.  XVII.  13  JDLY,  1912. 


190  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

that  speake  from  our  mouths,  those  Anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours  ;" 
that  is,  by  the  actors  in  search  of  dramatic  material.  Is  it  not  likely 
that  the  other  poets,  in  spite  of  their  services  to  the  ungrateful 
companies,  will  in  the  end  be  forsaken,  like  Greene,  in  their  extre- 
mities. Here  Greene,  in  his  anger,  cites  another  cause  for  distrust 
of  the  actors :  "  Yes,  trust  them  not  for  there  is  an  vpstart  Crow, 
beautified  with  our  feathers  (i.  e.,  a  presumptuous  actor  who  makes 
his  fortune  by  repeating  our  lines)  that  with  his  Tygers  heart  wrapt 
in  a  Players  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bumbast  out  a  blanke 
verse  as  the  best  of  you  :  and  being  an  absolute  lohannes  fac  totum, 
is  in  his  owne  conceit  the  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie." 

(jThat  the  allusion  here  is  to  Shakespeare  is  unmistakeable ;  but 
the  charge  which  Greene  brings  against  him  is  not  that  of  pla- 
giarism. Greene  is  moved  merely  by  pique  that  this  upstart  player, 
accustomed  to  make  his  profit  out  of  the  ill-paid  labors  of  the  poets, 
should  now  add  insult  to  injury  by  venturing  to  enter  the  ranks  of 
dramatic  authors  and  thus  attempting  to  prove  himself  an  absolute 
Johannes  fac  totum.  ^The  line,  "  Tygers  heart  wrapt  in  a  Players 
hide,"  is  clearly  a  parrtxiy  of  "  Oh  Tygers  hart  wrapt  in  a  womans 
hide "  in  the  True  Tragedy l  and  seems  to  have  pertinence  only 
if  we  assume  Shakespeare's  revision  of  the  play  in  question  already 
to  have  been  made.  Similarly,  the  next  clause,  "  supposes  he  is  as 
well  able  to  bumbast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best  of  you,"  indicates 
that  Johannes-fac-totum  had  definitely  put  his  blank  verse  rendering 
of  the  play  into  competition  with  that  of  "  the  best  "  of  the  poets 
addressed  by  Greene  (viz.,  Marlowe  ?).  For  even  a  hint,  however, 
that  Greene  or  Peele  was  connected  in  any  way  with  the  work  quoted 
the  reader  must  look  in  vain.  The  very  use  of  the  second  person 
of  the  pronoun,  rather  than  the  first,  in  the  phrase,  "  as  well  able 
to  bumbast  out  a  blanke  .verse  as  the  best  of  you,"  shows,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  Greene  did  not  feel  himself  included  in  the 
challenge  involved  in  'the  actor-poet's  revisionary  work/J 

After  this  not  unnatural  excursus  upon  the  effrontery  of  an  indi- 
vidual actor  who  had  dared  in  his  revision  of  the  Henry  VI  plays  to 
match  his  blank  verse  against  that  of  the  best  of  the  professional 
poets,  Greene  returns  to  his  main  theme :  the  unprofitableness  of 
the  playwright's  career :  "  O  that  I  might  intreate  your  rare  wits 
to  be  imployed  in  more  profitable  courses  (i.  e.,  that  I  might  entreat 
you  to  employ  your  genius  in  more  lucrative  undertakings  than 
play-writing)  &  let  these  Apes  (the  actors)  imitate  your  past 


1  Facsimile  of  True  Tragedy,  1891,  p.  20,  1.  122 ;  3  Henry  VI,  I,  iv,  137. 


The  Authorship  of  "King  Henry  VI."  191 

excellence  (act  your  old  plays),  and  never  more  acquaint  them  with 
your  admired  inventions  (refrain  for  the  future  from  writing  for  the 
stage).  "  I  know,"  Greene  continues,  "  the  best  husband  of  you 
all  will  neuer  proue  an  Vsurer,  and  the  kindest  of  them  all  wil  neuer 
prooue  a  kinde  nurse  ;  yet,  whilst  you  may  seeke  you  better  Maisters  ; 
for  it  is  pittie  men  of  such  rare  wits  should  be  subject  to  the  pleasures 
of  such  rude  groomes." 

Considerable  injustice  has  been  done  to  Greene  in  the  prevailing 
interpretation  of  this  passage.1  A  certain  malice  appears,  to  be 
sure,  in  the  address  to  Marlowe,  and  there  is  open  hostility  in  the 
allusion  to  Shakespeare — hostility  directed  in  the  latter  instance 
rather  against  the  actor  than  the  poet.  In  general,  however, 
Greene's  letter,  instead  of  voicing  petty  literary  spite  and  unfounded 
charges  of  plagiarism,  expresses  a  manly  denunciation  of  one  of  the 
crudest  injustices  of  Elizabethan  life  :  the  heart-breaking  and 
pauperizing  subservience  of  the  dramatic  poets  to  the  managers  of 
theatrical  companies.  The  genuineness  of  the  grievance  against 
which  the  dying  Greene  inveighs  is  illustrated  not  only  by  the  cases 
cited  by  the  writer — that  of  Peele  and  of  Greene  himself — but  even 
more  pathetically  in  the  detailed  sketch  which  Henslowe's  Diary 
gives  of  the  straitened  lives  of  that  penurious  manager's  employes, 
Chettle  and  Dekker. 

Greene's  letter  bears  upon  the  True  Tragedy,  and  inferentially 
upon  the  Contention,  only  in  so  far  as  it  suggests  that  Shakespeare's 
revision  of  these  pieces  had  already  been  completed  at  the  time 
of  Greene's  death  (September,  1592),  and  in  so  far  as  it  seems  to  in- 
dicate more  remotely  that  the  original  author  was  Marlowe./  No 
hint  whatever  of  Peele's  connexion  with  the  plays  occurs  and  Greene's 
connexion  appears  to  be  positively  disclaimed  by  the  wording  of 
the  passage.  No  accusation  of  plagiarism  is  brought  against  Shake- 
speare. Such  a  charge  would,  indeed,  have  been  absurd  in  view 


1  Apparently  Malone  in  his  Dissertation  on  King  Henry  VI  (Boswell's 
Malone,  vol.  xviii,  p.  570  ff.)  first  concluded  from  the  Groatsworth  of  Wit 
that  Shakespeare  had  plagiarized  from  Greene  and  Peele.  Tyrwhitt  (cf. 
Boswell's  Malone,  same  volume,  p.  551  f.)  had  previously  called  attention  to 
the  passage  in  question,  but  only  as  proving  that  Shakespeare  was  author  of 
the  Henry  VI  plays  and  that  "  they  had,  at  the  time  of  their  appearance,  a 
sufficient  degree  of  excellence  to  alarm  the  jealousy  of  the  older  playwrights." 
The  interpretation  which  I  have  attempted  to  give  I  find  to  be  partially 
anticipated  in  a  brief  note  by  Richard  Simpson  (The  Academy,  Apr.  4,  1874) 
and  in  Ingleby's  correction  of  Simpson's  view.  p.  xi  of  General  Introduction 
to  Shakspere  Allusion- Books,  Part  I  (1874). 


192  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

of  the  facts ;  for  an  author  hired  by  one  theatrical  company  to  re- 
vise a  play  manuscript  acquired  from  another  company  could  in 
Greene's  time  no  more  be  held  guilty  of  plagiarizing  from  the  ori- 
ginal writer  than  could  to-day  the  poet  who  adapted  for  the  stage 
another  man's  novel  after  the  acting  rights  had  been  sold.  Greene's 
real  accusation  against  Shakespeare  is  quite  the  reverse.  Instead 
of  charging  him  with  slavish  imitation,  he  derides  his  effrontery 
in  essaying  too  boldly  to  match  his  verse,  tyro  and  mechanical  as 
he  was,  against  that  of  the  leading  professional  dramatist  of  the 
day.  We  shall  see,  in  comparing  the  earlier  and  later  versions  of 
the  plays,  that  it  is  precisely  this  feature,  the  independence  with 
which  Shakespeare  alters  both  the  metre  and  the  thought  of  Marlowe, 
that  distinguishes  the  later  poet's  work. 

The  arguments  by  which  successive  critics  have  sought  to  support 
the  idea  of  Greene's  and  Peele's  interest  in  Henry  VI,  falsely  de- 
duced from  the  passage  just  considered,  are  admitted  to  be  of  the 
most  insubstantial  nature,  and  they  fall  with  the  fall  of  the  pre- 
conception which  avowedly  suggested  them.  Grant  White  laid  an 
absurd  stress  upon  the  appearance  in  the  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy  of  the  idiom  for  to  in  infinitive  phrases,  erroneously  asserting 
that  this  idiom  was  a  peculiar  mark  of  Greene's  style  never  employed 
by  Marlowe  or  Shakespeare.  Miss  Lee,  herself  an  advocate  of  the 
Greene  theory,  admits  that  for  to,  which  occurs  five  times  in  the 
Contention  and  four  times  in  the  True  Tragedy,  occurs  also  in  Shake- 
speare and  in  Marlowe's  Tamburlaine,  Doctor  Faustus,  and  Massacre 
at  Paris.  In  the  last  play  alone  I  find  six  instances.1  Miss  Lee 
mentions  examples  from  The  Winter's  Tale,  Pericles,  All 's  Well  that 
Ends  Well,  Titus  Andronicus,  and  the  older  (1603)  version  of  Hamlet. 
In  regard  to  the  last  play,  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  earlier  for  to  is 
twice  altered  in  the  later  version  into  the  normal  to.  The  fact  is 
that  the  old  use  of  for  to  as  sign  of  the  infinitive  was  still  generally 
current  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  had  come  to  be 
regarded  as  slip-shod.  Greene,  a  careless  writer,  employs  it  fre- 
quently. Marlowe  and  Shakespeare  also  use  it  frequently  in  their 
rougher  works,  but  tend  to  eliminate  it  upon  revision. 

The  only  other  evidence  even  speciously  favorable  to  the  theory 
of  Greene's  partial  authorship  of  our  plays  is,  I  think,  the  circum- 
stance that  "  mightie  Abradas,  the  great  Masadonian  Pyrate,"  men- 
tioned in  the  Contention  (Facsimile,  p.  44,  1.  51),  is  mentioned  also 


1  LI.  518,  559,  1033,  1120,  1131,  1260.     White,  indeed,  himself  admitted 
that  his  theory  broke  down  in  the  case  of  this  play. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  193 

in  Greene's  prose  work,  Penelope's  Web,1  but  not,  apparently,  in 
any  other  Elizabethan  author.  Henry  VI,  Part  II  (IV,  i,  108) 
alters  the  name  to  "  Bargulus,  the  strong  Illyrian  pirate."  In  de- 
ciding a  question  of  authorship  between  Marlowe  and  Greene,  who, 
after  the  same  kind  of  school  training,  had  passed  through  the  same 
Cambridge  career  at  about  the  same  time,  no  small  piece  of  classic 
or  pseudo-classic  learning  can  safely  be  held  to  be  the  peculiar 
possession  of  either.  Whatever  Greene  knew  about  Abradas  he  is 
likely  to  have  learned  at  Cambridge,  where  it  is  improbable  that 
Marlowe  failed  to  gain  precisely  the  same  knowledge  from  the  same 
source. 

I  believe  that  no  value  whatever  attaches  to  the  other  putative 
evidence  laboriously  collected  by  Miss  Lee  and  her  predecessors: 
the  facts,  namely,  that  Greene  as  wrell  as  Marlowe  uses  words  like 
countervail  and  eternize,  which  are  found  in  the  Contention  and  True 
Tragedy ;  and  that  four  passages  in  these  plays,  of  which  two  are 
closely  paralleled  in  Marlowe,  are  remotely  similar  to  passages  in 
Greene.  Miss  Lee  is  herself  careful  to  avow  the  small  stress  she 
lays  upon  such  arguments.2  Indeed,  the  reading  of  her  pages  tends 
to  convince  one  the  more  strongly  of  the  entire  baselessness  of  the 
Greene  theory,  as  one  observes  what  perfectly  negligible  results 
have  been  attained  by  the  most  diligent  inquiry  backed  by  fervent 
belief  on  the  part  of  the  investigator. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  there  is  absolutely  no  proof  of  Greene's 
concern  in  the  plays  under  consideration.  There  is  the  strongest 
reason  against  believing  that  Greene  collaborated  with  Marlowe  at 
any  time.  Though  the  latter  is  naturally  included  in  the  group 
of  scholar-poets  to  whom  Greene's  letter  is  addressed,  the  tone  of 
the  words  concerning  Marlowe  is  covertly  hostile.  We  know  from 
the  apology  of  Greene's  executor,  Chettle,  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Gentlemen  Readers  of  Kind-Harts  Dreame  that  Marlowe  as  well 
as  Shakespeare  resented  Greene's  letter  and  made  his  resentment 
known.  Four  years  before  the  composition  of  the  Groatsworth  of 
Wit,  in  the  preface  to  Perimedes  the  Blacksmith  (1588),  Greene  had 
attacked  Marlowe  yet  more  openly : 

"  I  keepe  my  old  course,  to  palter  up  some  thing  in  Prose,  using 
mine  old  poesie  still,  Omne  tulit  punctum,  although  latelye  two  Gentle- 

1  "  Abradas  the  great  Macedonian  Pirat  thought  every  one  had  a  letter 
of  mart  that  bare  sayles  in  the  Ocean,"   Greene's  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  vol.v, 
p.   197.     The  entire  passage  is  repeated  verbatim  in  Greene's  Menaphon, 
vol.  vi,  p.  77  f.  of  Grosart's  ed. 

2  Transactions  New  Shakspere  Society,  p.  245. 


194  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

men  Poets  made  two  madmen  of  Rome  beate  it  out  of  their  paper 
bucklers,  &  had  it  in  derision,  for  that  I  could  not  make  my  verses 
iet  upon  the  stage  in  tragicall  buskins,  euerie  worde  filling  the  mouth 
like  the  fa  burden  of  Bo-Bell,  daring  God  out  of  heaven  with  that 
Atheist  Tamburlan,  or  blaspheming  with  the  mad  preest  of  the 


sonne. 


On  Marlowe's  side  we  have  no  open  expression  of  such  early  hostil- 
ity to  Greene,  but  it  is  easy  to  guess  that  he  cannot  have  relished 
Greene's  plagiarism  of  Tamburlaine  in  AlpJionsvs  of  Arragon  and 
Orlando  Furioso  or  his  clear  attempt  to  cap  the  success  of  Doctor 
Faustus  in  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay.  Everything  indicates 
that  the  unfriendliness  between  Greene  and  Marlowe  was  permanent 
through  the  entire  period,  1588—1592,  and  it  seems  out  of  the 
question  that  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy,  both  certainly  com- 
posed within  this  period,  can  have  been  the  result  of  a  friendly 
alliance  between  the  two  poets. 

Apart  from  the  state  of  Marlowe's  personal  relations  with  Greene, 
it  seems  quite  unlikely  that  the  former  poet  can  have  collaborated 
in  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  with  any  writer  of  his  day. 
Marlowe  appears  to  have  worked  alone.  His  genius  was  not  of  the 
character  which  seeks  the  assistance  and  companionship  of  other 
men.  Except  in  the  case  of  Dido,  ascribed  on  the  title-page  to 
Marlowe  and  Nash,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  other 
poet  was  concerned  in  the  original  draft  of  any  of  Marlowe's  works. 
And  even  Dido  bears  the  stamp  of  Marlowe's  hand  so  wholly,  that 
editors  both  of  Nash  and  of  Marlowe  find  difficulty  in  imagining 
it  the  result  of  a  real  partnership,  preferring  on  the  whole  to  conclude 
that  Nash  had  merely  a  subsequent  interest  in  the  play  as  reviser 
after  Marlowe's  death. 

It  may  very  safely  be  said,  therefore,  I  think,  that  all  the 
evidence  at  present  accessible  strongly  supports  the  inference  that 
the  original  version  of  2  and  3  Henry  VI,  somewhat  imperfectly 
represented  in  the  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy,  was  written 
by  Marlowe  alone. 

III.  SHAKESPEARE'S  REVISION  OF  MARLOWE'S  WORK. 

(_The  student  who  compares  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy  with 
the  Folio  text  of  2  and  3  Henry  VI  will  perceive  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  indications  of  diverse  authorship  in  the  character  of 
King  Henry  as  it  appears  in  the  two  versions.  In  the  earlier  plays 

1  Greene's  Works,  ed.   Grosart,  vol.  vii,  p.  7,  8. 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  195 

the  king  is  presented  as  an  amiable  weakling  of  the  type  of  Mycetes 
in  Tamburlaine.  Nothing,  I  think,  in  the  personality  here  displayed 
attracts  the  attention  of  the  reader,  or  suggests  special  interest  on 
the  author's  part.  The  negative  virtues  of  humility  and  irresolute 
conscientiousness  made  little  appeal  to  Marlowe's  soaring  imagi- 
nation. Thvs,  the  pious  Henry  is  depicted  in  the  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy,  without  insight  or  sympathy,  as  a  mere  foil  to  bring 
out  the  more  positive  and  more  evil  characters  of  those  who  seek 
to  rule  or  overthrow  him.~~l 

(jn  the  texts  printed  in  the  Shakespeare  Folio  the  impression  made 
by  this  figure  is  not  only  vastly  deeper  ;  it  is  also  quite  different  in 
kind.  For  the  first  time  Henry  becomes  important  by  virtue  of  the 
qualities  which  he  possesses  rather  than  because  of  those  he  lacks. 
The  view  of  life  back  of  this  later  treatment  of  the  king's  character 
is  the  impartial,  judicial  view  illustrated  by  Shakespeare  a  little 
later  in  the  careful  balancing  of  Bolingbroke  against  Richard  II. 
It  involves  an  outlook  quite  foreign  to  the  partisan  view-point  of 
Mario  we.  "^ 

u"he  change  in  Henry's  character,  tending  to  add  vividness  and 
poetic  charm  to  the  dry  stock  of  Marlowe,  is  observable  almost  from 
the  very  start  of  2  Henry  VI.  The  first  scene  of  Act  II  of  that 
play,  though  otherwise  not  notably  different  from  the  corresponding 
scene  in  the  Contention,*  increases  the  lines  given  to  Henry  by  fifty 
percent  and  makes  the  king's  words  for  the  first  time  significant. 
In  the  earlier  version  of  the  scene,  Henry's  speeches  are  nearly  all 
dull,  reflecting  no  spark  of  sympathy  on  the  author's  part  ;  but  in 
2  Henry  II  there  appears  a  vein  of  the  rich  meditative  wisdom  which 
endears  to  vs  the  figure  of  the  equally  incapable  Richard  II.  With 
hardly  an  exception,  the  new  lines  are  conspicuous  for  poetic  and 
philosophic  value  ;  e.  g., 

\ 

'(/To  see  how  God  in  all  his  creatures  works  ! 

Yea  man  and  birds  are  fain  of  climbing  high  "  ;  1.  7  f.) 
"Heaven,  "  The  treasury  of  everlasting  joy  "  ;  (1.  18) 

"  How  irksome  is  this  music  to  my  heart  ! 

When  such  strings  jar,  what  hope  of  harmony  ?  "  (1.  56  f  : 


God  be  prais'd  that  to  believing  souls 
l^  Gives  light  in  darkness,  comfort  in  despair  !  "  (66  f.) 

1  In  the  Contention  this  scene  contains  171  lines  ;  in  2  Henry  VI  it  contains 
203.     The  added  lines  are  almost  exclusively  those  given  to  King  Henry. 


196  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

/     Great  is  his  comfort  in  this  earthly  vale, 

\  Although  by  his  sight  his  sin  be  multiplied  "  ;  (1.  70  f .) 

"  0  God!  seest  thou  this,  and  bearst  so  long'  "  (1.  153) 

"  O  God !  what  mischiefs  work  the  wicked  ones, 

Heaping  confusion  on  their  own  heads  thereby  "  ;  (1.  184  f.) 

"And  poise  the  cause  in  justice'  equal  scales, 

Whose  beam  stands  sure,  whose  rightful  cause  prevails."  (202  f.) 

These  lines,  found  only  in  the  revised  scene,  are  strikingly  at 
variance  with  the  bald  insipidities  of  Henry's  speeches  in  the  Con- 
tention. They  mark  the  presence  of  a  mind  to  which  was  revealed, 
behind  the  practical  incompetence  of  the  monarch,  a  counter- 
balancing wealth  of  moral  and  poetic  feeling  entirely  unpercieved  by 
the  original  author. 

)  The  same  new-birth  of  sympathy  for  the  king  is  conspicuous  in 
the  scene  where  Duke  Humphrey  is  arraigned  (2  Henry  VI,  III,  i). 
Marlowe's  version  of  this  passage,  in  the  Contention,  treats  Henry 
with  open  contempt.  He  is  allowed  to  speak  only  twelve  detached 
lines  expressive  of  his  total  inability  to  cope  with  the  situation  or 
even  to  comprehend  it.  Shakespeare's  version  still  depicts  the  king 
as  weak,  of  course ;  but  it  no  longer  presents  him  as  a  mere  puppet. 
Whereas  the  Contention  permits  Margaret  and  Suffolk  to  slander 
Duke  Humphrey  without  a  word  of  protest  from  the  passive  ruler, 
the  1623  text  inserts  a  fine  sympathetic  speech  admirably  expressive 
of  Henry's  shy  timidity  before  his  headstrong  peers  and  of  his  innate 
feeling  for  righteousness  (2  Henry  VI,  III,  1,  66-73)  : 

"  My  lords,  at  once :  the  care  you  have  of  us, 
To  mow  down  thorns  that  would  annoy  our  foot, 
Is  worthy  praise ;  but  shall  I  speak  my  conscience, 
Our  kinsman  Gloucester  is  as  innocent 
From  meaning  treason  to  our  royal  person, 
As  is  the  sucking  lamb  or  harmless  dove. 
The  duke  is  virtuous,  mild,  and  too  well  given 
To  dream  on  evil,  or  to  work  my  downfall."  ~~] 

N>  Unconvinced,  the  protesting  king  is  simply  talked  down  by  Mar- 
garet. Later  in  the  scene,  when  Humphrey  is  formally  accused  and 
led  away  by  the  Cardinal's  men,  the  king  goes  out,  leaving  the  Queen 
and  her  counselors  to  do  as  they  please.  Marlowe  here  gives  Henry 
only  three  bare  lines  in  which  to  speak  his  feeble  sorrow  (Contention, 
p.  33,  1.  109-111)  : 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  197 

"I,  Margaret.  My  heart  is  kild  with  grief e, 
Where  I  may  sit  and  sigh  in  endlesse  mone, 
For  who's  a  Traitor,  Gloster  he  is  none."1 

The  Folio  version,  on  the  other  hand,  assigns  the  king  twenty-five 
lines  of  fine  poetry,  written  in  the  unmistakeable  strain  of  the  young 
Shakespeare,  and  calculated  to  enlist  the  audience's  sympathy  with 
the  speaker  (2  Henry  VI,  III,  i,  198-222)  : 

"  Ay,  Margaret ;  my  heart  is  drown'd  with  grief, 
Whose  flood  begins  to  flow  within  mine  eyes, 
My  body  round  engirt  with  misery, 
For  what's  more  miserable  than  discontent  ? 
Ah  !  uncle  Humphrey,  in  thy  face  I  see 
The  map  of  honuor,  truth,  and  loyalty ; 
And  yet,  good  Humphrey,  is  the  hour  to  come 
That  e'er  I  prov'd  thee  false,  or  fear'd  thy  faith. 
What  low'ring  star  now  envies  thy  estate, 
That  these  great  lords,  and  Margaret  our  queen, 
Do  seek  subversion  of  thy  harmless  life  ? 
Thou  never  didst  them  wrong,  nor  no  man  wrong ; 
And  as  the  butcher  takes  away  the  calf, 
And  binds  the  wretch,  and  beats  it  when  it  strays, 
Bearing  it  to  the  bloody  slaughter-house, 
Even  so,  remorseless,  have  they  borne  him  hence ; 
And  as  the  dam  runs  lowing  up  and  down, 
Looking  the  way  her  harmless  young  one  went, 
And  can  do  nought  but  wail  her  darling's  loss ; 
Even  so  myself  bewails  good  Gloucester's  case, 
With  sad  unhelpful  tears,  and  with  dimm'd  eyes 
Look  after  him,  and  cannot  do  him  good ; 
So  mighty  are  his  vowed  enemies. 
His  fortunes  I  will  weep ;  and,  twixt  each  groan, 
Say  '  Who's  a  traitor,  Gloucester  he  is  none.'  "j 

This  fairmindedness,  which  impels  the  poet  to  see  two  sides  of  the 
situation,  and  to  sympathize  with  the  claims  of  the  feebler  perso- 
nality, is  the  most  notable  contribution  made  by  Shakespeare  to  the 
psychology  of  the  plays.  It  not  only  makes  Henry  VI's  character 
for  the  first  time  worthy  of  consideration  as  it  appears  in  the  Shake- 


1  As  the  sense  is  not  quite  consecutive,  it  is  possible  that  a  line  may  have 
been  lost  between  the  first  and  second  verses  of  this  speech.  The  1619 
edition  makes  no  correction. 


198  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

spearean  revision.  It  adds  also  very  notably  to  the  pathos  and 
attractiveness  of  the  good  Duke  Humphrey.  In  Marlowe's  strenuous 
philosophy  of  life,  nothing  succeeded  like  success.  Genial  and 
sympathetic  as  was  the  character  of  the  Duke  in  the  chronicles, 
the  Contention  has  a  decided  tendency  to  slight  the  treatment  of 
this  representative  of  defeated  magnanimity  in  the  ardent  interest 
with  which  the  play  follows  the  rising  fortunes  of  Humphrey's  rivals, 
Margaret,  Suffolk,  and  York.  The  1623  version  does  much  more 
justice  to  the  claims  of  Humphrey's  personality,  thus  broadening  the 
humanity  of  the  work,  and  reflecting  again  that  impartiality  in  the 
judgment  of  character,  which  from  the  first  made  Shakespeare's 
equipment  as  a  dramatist  superior  to  Marlowe's. 

Otherwise,  it  can  hardly  be  held  that  Shakespeare's  adaptation 
greatly  enriched  the  plays  we  are  discussing  either  in  plot  or  in 
portraiture.  Within  the  narrow  psychological  province  where  Mar- 
lowe's genius  was  at  its  best — in  the  depicting  of  evil  ambition- 
Shakespeare  was  in  1592  only  a  pupil,  and  he  seems  to  have  been 
content  to  leave  the  outlines  of  the  great  figures  of  York,  Suffolk, 
Margaret,  Warwick,  and  Richard  as  he  found  them.  Certainty  the 
minor  alterations  which  he  admitted  were  quite  insufficient  in  all 
these  cases  to  obscure  the  deep  impression  of  Marlowe's  original 
sketch.  So,  too,  the  plot  of  2  and  3  Henry  VI  hinges  upon  the  partic- 
ular kind  of  interest  which  Marlowe  read  into  the  story  of  the  chron- 
iclers ;  and,  though  Shakespeare,  as  befitted  the  professional  actor, 
occasionally  rearranged  the  old  scenes  in  the  interests  of  practical 
stage-craft — notably  in  the  case  of  scenes  ii— vii  of  Act  IV  of  3  Henry 
VI — he  did  not  essentially  affect  the  general  method  or  tone  of  his 
models. 

Thus,  the  reader  of  the  later  version  should  bear  in  mind  that, 
with  the  rather  unimportant  exceptions  just  mentioned,  the  second 
and  third  parts  of  Henry  VI  represent  the  ideas  and  the  dramatic 
theory  of  Marlowe,  though  about  half  the  actual  lines  printed  in  the 
1623  Folio  may  be  due  either  to  the  independent  composition  or  to 
the  careful  re-writing  of  Shakespeare. 

Enough  has  probably  been  said  in  other  connexions  to  refute  the 
unfounded  hypothesis  of  Miss  Lee  that  Shakespeare  was  assisted  by 
Marlowe  in  his  revision.  To  assume  that  either  Marlowe  or  Shake- 
speare was  concerned  with  these  plays  in  more  than  one  of  the 
phases  of  their  evolution  is  merely  to  set  up  a  conjecture,  unsup- 
ported by  fact  or  likelihood,  for  the  purpose  of  needlessly  involving 
the  question  of  authorship.  No  known  circumstance  in  the  life 
of  either  poet  suggests  the  possibility  of  collaboration  between 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  199 

Shakespeare  and  Marlowe  at  any  time  ;  and  the  great  difference  both 
between  the  careers  of  the  two  authors  and  between  the  circles  in 
which  they  moved  would  make  very  definite  evidence  necessary  to 
the  proof  of  so  unlikely  a  connexion.  As  regards  the  present 
question,  it  would  seem  particularly  improbable  that  Marlowe, 
at  the  height  of  his  fame,  should  have  condescended  to  rewrite  two  of 
his  plays  under  the  direction  of  a  young  player  belonging  to  a  company 
with  which  Marlo\ve  can  hardly  be  shown  ever  to  have  had  business 
relations.1  And,  on  the  other  hand,  there  appears  no  shadow  of 
reason  why  Shakespeare's  company,  having  one  of  their  own  number 
able  to  make  all  the  changes  required,  should  have  gone  to  the 
trouble  and  expense  of  hiring  a  great  unattached  poet  to  add  what 
admittedly  can  have  been  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  new  passages. 
Collaboration,  of  course,  did  exist  in  Shakespeare's  time  among  the 
numerous  hacks  in  the  regular  employ  of  Henslowe,  where  it  was 
natural  and  easily  arranged ;  but  Marlowe  never  belonged  to  that 
band  of  hacks,  and  there  is  good  reason  against  believing  that  Shake- 
speare or  Shakespeare's  company  ever  approved  the  practice. 

It  has  been  indicated,  however,  that  Marlowe's  complete  work 
cannot  safely  be  assumed  to  exist  in  the  Contention  and  True  Tragedy 
texts.  The  latter  plays  appear  rather  to  be  bad  copies  of  acting 
versions,  themselves  perhaps  abbreviated.  Shakespeare's  revision 
was  made  two  or  three  years  before  the  publication  of  the 
Contention  and  Ture  Tragedy,  and  it  was  certainly  based  upon  a 
purer  text  than  that  given  in  Millington's  quartos — not  improb- 
ably upon  the  very  manuscript  originally  sold  by  Marlowe  to 
Lord  Pembroke's  Company.  In  considering  the  additional  passages 
found  in  the  1623  Folio,  it  is  a  somewhat  delicate  matter  to  dis- 
criminate between  passages  belonging  to  the  original  Marlovian 
plays,  but  misrepresented  or  omitted  by  Millington,  and  newer 
passages  which  embody  the  revision  of  Shakespeare. 

In  a  few  instances  it  is  clear  that  the  1623  edition  is  merely  giving 
the  accurate  text  of  Marlowe,  where  the  earlier  version  prints  a 
corrupt  reading.  Thus,  in  3  Henry  VI,  III.  iii,  97,  the  line,  "  And 
not  bewray  thy  treason  with  a  blush,"  is  obviously  what  Marlowe 
wrote,  though  the  True  Tragedy  text,  by  omitting  the  necessary 
"  not ",  destroys  the  sense.  In  IV,  iii,  31  f.  of  the  same  play, 

1  Henslowe's  Diary,  indeed,  shows  that  The  Jew  of  Malta  and  The  Massacre 
at  Paris  were  acted  by  Lord  Strange's  Men  in  1592/93.  Both  plays,  however, 
were  also  acted  by  other  companies  with  which  Henslowe  happened  to  be 
connected,  and  it  seems  doubtful  whether  either  belonged  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  the  Strange  Company. 


200  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

"  When  you  disgrac'd  me  in  my  embassade, 
Then  I  degraded  you  from  being  king," 

it   seems   again    probable    that    Shakespeare   preserves    Marlowe's 
text,  and  that  the  appearance  of  "  disgraste,"  instead  of  "  degraded  " 
in  the  True  Tragedy  (p.  58,  1.  33)  is  due  to  the  1595  printer's  inad- 
vertent repetition  of  the  word  used  in  the  previous  line. 
In  Act  V,  scene  iii,  of  3  Henry  VI  (11.  4-6)  we  read 

"  I  spy  a  black,  suspicious,  threat'ning  cloud, 
That  will  encounter  with  our  glorious  sun, 
Ere  he  attain  his  easeful  western  bed ;" 

whereas  the  True  Tragedy  version  gives  (p.  69,  1.  6-8)  : 

"I  see  a  blacke  suspitious  cloud  appeare, 
That  will  encounter  with  our  glorious  sunne 
Before  he  gaine  his  easefull  westerne  beames." 

Here  there  is  room  for  doubt  in  the  case  of  most  of  the  variants 
whether  Shakespeare  is  revising  the  True  Tragedy  text  or  merely 
printing  correctly  what  that  text  gives  in  corrupted  form.  But 
as  regards  the  last  word,  it  is  clear  that  "  bed  ",  the  reading  of  the 
Folio,  must  be  the  reading  of  Marlowe's  manuscript  also,  because 
the  alternative,  "  beames,"  fails  to  make  sense  and  confesses  itself 
the  perversion  of  a  sleepy  compositor. 

Sometimes  lines,  which  seem  to  be  original  with  the  1623  version, 
have  merely  been  borrowed  from  other  parts  of  the  earlier  text. 
In  II,  i,  53  of  3  Henry  VI,  the  messenger  reporting  York's  death 
uses  a  line  which  does  not  occur  in  the  corresponding  passage  of  the 
True  Tragedy : 

"  But  Hercules  himself  must  yield  to  odds." 

One  would  probably  be  inclined  to  regard  this  line  as  original  with 
Shakespeare ;  but  on  investigation  one  discovers  that  the  identical 
line  appears  many  pages  later  in  the  True  Tragedy  in  connection  with 
the  death  of  Warwick  (p.  68,  1.  24)  : 

"  But  Hercules  himself e  must  yeeld  to  ods." 

Instead  of  inventing,  Shakespeare  has  simply  shifted  the  original 
matter  from  one  context  to  another. 

Another  instance  of  the  same  procedure  is  found  at  the  beginning 
of  Act  V,  scene  iii,  of  3  Henry  VI : 

"  Thus  far  our  fortune  keeps  an  upward  course, 
And  we  are  grac'd  with  wreaths  of  victory." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  201 

These  lines  are  quite  different  from  those  in  the  corresponding  passage 
in  the  True  Tragedy.  Moreover,  since  the  second  line  is  identical 
with  a  verse  in  the  Massacre  at  Paris,1  the  couplet  has  even  been 
cited  by  Miss  Lee  as  proof  that  Marlowe  collaborated  with  Shake- 
speare in  revising  the  plays  subsequent  to  the  composition  of  the 
text  preserved  in  the  Contention  and  Trve  Tragedy.  However,  the 
precise  lines  in  question  are  found  in  an  earlier  part  of  the  True 
Tragedy  (p.  39,  1.  30).  Again  the  Mario vian  material  has  merely 
been  transferred  in  the  Folio  text  from  one  scene  to  another. 

The  passages  from  3  Henry  VI  just  instanced  illustrate  the 
difficulty  of  determining  with  absolute  precision  the  respective 
amovnts  of  Marlovian  and  Shakespearean  verse  in  the  plays  we  are 
discussing.  In  the  case  of  2  Henry  VI,  where  Millington's  text  is 
particularly  imperfect,  the  problem  is  yet  more  obscure.  Exactly 
how  many  lines  Shakespeare  added  from  his  own  imagination  and 
how  many  he  altered  from  the  manuscript  of  Marlowe  must  doubt- 
less remain  unsettled.  There  are,  however,  in  both  plays  a  number 
of  passages  in  which  the  impact  of  Shakespeare's  mind  upon  the 
conceptions  of  Marlowe  can  be  clearly  traced.  The  study  of  these 
passages  throws  very  valuable  light  upon  the  character  of  Shake- 
speare's early  verse  and' upon  the  ideals  by  which  he  was  governed  in 
his  first  attempts  at  dramatizing  English  history. 

An  excellent  example  of  the  contrasted  styles  of  Marlowe  and 
Shakespeare  is  furnished  by  the  soliloquy  of  York  at  the  close  of 
the  first  scene  of  2  Henry  VI.  In  the  Contention  this  fine  speech 
runs  as  follows  (Facsimile,  p.  7,  1.  143  ff.) : 

"  Anioy  and  Maine  both  giuen  vnto  the  French, 

Cold  newes  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France, 

Euen  as  I  haue  of  fertill  England. 

A  day  will  come  when  Yorke  shall  claime  his  owne, 

And  therefore  I  will  take  the  Neuels  parts, 

And  make  a  show  of  loue  to  proud  Duke  Humphrey : 

And  when  I  spie  aduantage,  claime  the  Crowne, 

For  thats  the  golden  marke  I  seeke  to  hit : 

Nor  shall  proud  Lancaster  vsurpe  my  right, 

Nor  hold  the  scepter  in  his  childish  fist, 

Nor  weare  the  Diademe  vpon  his  head, 

Whose  church-like  humours  fits  not  for  a  Crowne : 

Then  Yorke  be  still  a  while  till  time  do  seme, 

Watch  thou,  and  wake  when  others  be  asleepe, 

1  See  above,  p.  168,  parallel  21. 


202  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

To  prie  into  the  secrets  of  the  state, 

Till  Henry  surfeiting  in  ioyes  of  loue, 

With  his  new  bride,  and  Englands  dear  bought  queene, 

And  Humphrey  with  the  Peeres  be  falne  at  iarres, 

Then  will  I  raise  aloft  the  milke-white  Rose, 

With  whose  swete  smell  the  aire  shall  be  perfumde, 

And  in  my  Standard  beare  the  Armes  of  Yorke, 

To  graffle  with  the  House  of  Lancaster : 

And  force  perforce,  ile  make  him  yeeld  the  Crowne, 

Whose  bookish  rule  hath  puld  faire  England  downe." 

Bad  as  the  text  of  the  Contention  often  is,  the  student  of  Marlowe 
will  hardly  refuse  to  accept  every  syllable  of  this  speech  as  the  genuine 
work  of  the  poet.  More  distinctly  Marlovian  verse,  in  melody  and 
in  sense,  it  would,  indeed,  be  hard  to  point  out.  The  reviser,  Shake- 
speare, evidently  found  no  fault  here,  for  he  was  content  to  retain  the 
lines  quoted  without  any  change  except  the  characteristic  metrical 
alteration  of  "  fertile  England  "  into  "  fertile  England's  soil,"  which 
has  been  mentioned  above.1  However,  it  would  seem  that  the 
fine  lines  and  the  fine  situation  challenged  the  imaginative  powers 
of  the  later  writer  and  made  him  insert,  as  a  supplement  to  the  old 
passage,  twenty-one  new  lines  as  typically  Shakespearean  as  are 
the  others  Marlovian.  After  quoting  with  a  trifling  change  the 
first  verse  of  Marlowe,  "  Anjou  and  Maine  are  given  to  the  French," 
the  reviser  continues  in  the  strain  most  natural  to  him  at  this  period 
(2  Henry  VI,  I,  i,  216-236)  : 

"  Paris  is  lost ;  the  state  of  Normandy 

Stands  on  a  tickle  point  now  they  are  gone. 

Suffolk  concluded  on  the  articles, 

The  peers  agreed,  and  Henry  was  well  pleas'd 

To- change  two  dukedoms  for  a  duke's  fair  daughter. 

I  cannot  blame  them  all :  what  is't  to  them  ? 

'Tis  thine  they  give  away,  and  not  their  own. 

Pirates  may  make  cheap  pennyworths  of  their  pillage, 

And  purchase  friends,  and  give  to  courtesans, 

Still  revelling  like  lords  till  all  be  gone ; 

Wrhile  as  the  silly  owner  of  the  goods 

Weeps  over  them,  and  wrings  his  hapless  hands, 

And  shakes  his  head,  and  trembling  stands  aloof, 

While  all  is  shar'd  and  all  is  borne  away, 

Ready  to  starve  and  dare  not  touch  his  own : 

1  See  p.  179. 


The  Authorship  of  "King  Henry  VI."  203 

So  York  must  sit  and  fret  and  bite  his  tongue 

While  his  own  lands  are  bargained  for  and  sold. 

Me  thinks  the  realms  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland 

Bear  that  proportion  to  my  flesh  and  blood 

As  did  the  fatal  brand  Althaea  burn'd 

Unto  the  prince's  heart  of  Calydon."1 

After  this  line  is  then  printed  the  whole  of  Marlowe's  speech, 

"  Anjou  and  Maine  both  given  unto  the  French ! 
Cold  news  for  me,  for  I  had  hope  of  France,"  etc. 

Unquestionably,  the  Shakespearean  insertion  here  weakens  the 
effect  of  the  passage.  The  new  matter  is  in  this  case  so  completely 
discordant  from  the  old  as  to  leave  no  doubt  of  its  different  author- 
ship. The  fiery  expression  of  York's  iron  resolution,  which  in  the 
original  lines  forces  itself  from  the  speaker's  mouth  in  language  of 
the  directest  self -revelation,  contrasts  sharply  with  the  rambling 
sentimentalism  of  the  Shakespearean  part,  where  five  lines  of  mere 
statistical  recapitulation  are  followed  by  a  far-away  metaphor  of 
pirates  and  an  affected  simile  relating  to  Althaea's  brand.  Divided 
authorship  can  hardly  have  produced  many  more  complete  perver- 
sions than  this,  where  Marlowe's  confident,  calculating  York,  flushed 
with  the  sense  of  power  and  the  promise  of  supreme  triumph,  is 
represented  by  Shakespeare  as  a  "  silly  "  merchant  in  the  grasp  of 
pirates,  weeping  over  his  lost  goods  and  wringing  his  hapless  hands ; 
shaking  his  head  and  standing  aloof,  "  While  all  is  shar'd  and  all  is 
borne  away,"  or  sitting  and  fretting  and  biting  his  tongue,  "  While 
his  own  lands  are  bargain'd  for  and  sold."  In  writing  this  score  of 
lines,  Shakespeare  was  impelled  not  by  the  desire  of  voicing  more 
truly  the  real  character  of  York,  but  merely  by  the  ambition  of  the 
young  poet  to  express  a  couple  of  pretty  notions — or,  in  Greene's 
phrase,  "  to  bumbast  out  blank  verse  "  with  the  great  master  of  that 
metre.  In  the  soliloquy  of  Hume  at  the  end  of  the  next  scene(2  HenryVI, 
I,  ii),  it  is  equally  clear  that  Shakespeare  is  somewhat  tastelessly 
padding  out  the  lines  of  Marlowe.  Instead  of  the  sober  presen- 
tation of  the  state  of  affairs  which  the  Contention  gives  in  thirteen 
lines,  the  1623  edition  fills  twenty-one  with  feeble  plays  on  words 

1  Something  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that  the  correct  version  of  the 
Althaea  story  here  disagrees  with  the  incorrect  allusion  in  2  Henry  IV,  II, 
ii,  98  ff.  It  should  be  remembered  that  when  Shakespeare  wrote  the  latter 
passage,  his  recollection  of  the  mythology  learned  in  his  school-boy  days 
had  become  some  six  years  dimmer. 


204  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

and  other  jocularities  quite  out  of  keeping  with  the  character  of  the 
speaker.  The  hand  of  the  young  Shakespeare  is  easily  recognizable 
in  verses  like  the  following  (U.  100  ff.)  : 

"  They  say,  '  A  crafty  knave  does  need  no  broker ;' 
Yet  am  I  Suffolk  and  the  Cardinal's  broker. 
Hume,  if  you  take  not  heed,  you  shall  go  near 
To  call  them  both  a  pair  of  crafty  knaves,"  etc. 

The  first  lines  of  Act  II,  scene  iv  (2  Henry  VI)  again  offer  an 
insight  into  Shakespeare's  revisionary  method.  In  the  Contention, 
the  passage  is  brief  and  direct,  the  one  object  being  to  show  Hum- 
phrey's keen  feeling  of  the  degradation  of  his  wife  (Contention, 
p.  7,  U.  1-10)  : 

"  Humph.     Sirra,  whats  a  clocke  ? 

Serving  (Man).     Almost  ten,  my  Lord. 

Humph.     Then  is  that  wofull  houre  hard  at  hand, 

That  my  poore  Lady  should  come  by  this  way, 

In  shamefull  penance  wandring  in  the  streetes. 

Sweete  Nell,  ill  can  thy  noble  minde  abrooke 

The  abiect  people  gazing  on  thy  face, 

With  envious  lookes  laughing  at  thy  shame, 

That  earst  did  follow  thy  proud  Chariot  wheeles, 

When  thou  didst  ride  in  tryumph  through  the  streetes." 

The  1623  version  omits  three  of  these  lines  (3—5),  retains  the  rest 
without  any  noteworthy  change,  and  adds  ten  new  verses  expressing 
a  conspicuously  different  mood.  I  give  the  passage  as  it  occurs 
in  the  later  text,  italicizing  the  lines  which  seem  to  be  original  with 
Shakespeare : 

"  Glo.     Thus  sometimes  hath  the  brightest  day  a  cloud ; 

And  after  svmmer  evermore  succeeds 

Barren  winter,  with  his  wrathful  nipping  cold : 

So  cares  and  joys  abound,  as  seasons  fleet. 

Sirs,  what's  o'clock  ? 

S erv  (ing-man) .          Ten,  my  lord. 

Glo.     Ten  is  the  hour  that  was  appointed  me 

To  watch  the  coming  of  my  punished  duchess : 

Uneath  may  she  endure  the  flinty  streets, 

To  tread  them  with  her  tender- feeling  feet. 

Sweet  Nell,  ill  can  thy  noble  mind  abrook 

The  abject  people,  gazing  on  thy  face 

With  envious  looks  still  laughing  at  thy  shame, 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  205 

That  erst  did  follow  thy  proud  chariot  wheels 
When  thou  didst  ride  in  triumph  through  the  streets. 
Bvt,  soft  \     I  think  she  comes ;  and  I'll  prepare 
My  tear-stain' d  eyes  to  see  her  miseries." 

Here  there  is  no  question  that  the  tone  of  the  new  matter  is  quite 
opposed  to  the  tone  of  the  old,  and  that  the  added  lines,  though  in 
themselves  excellent  poetry,  decidedly  weaken  the  effect  of  the 
whole.  The  four  introductory  lines  of  sententious  moral,  conceived 
in  the  spirit  of  many  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  form  a  feebler  opening 
to  the  scene  which  follows  than  the  curt  question  with  which  the 
Contention  version  begins.  The  new  lines,  8  and  9,  are  positively 
unfortunate,  for  they  divert  attention  from  the  humiliation  of 
Eleanor's  "noble  mind,"  of  which  Marlowe's  Gloucester  thinks  alone, 
to  the  rather  ludicrous  image  of  the  duchess's  physical  discomfort 
as  she  walks  barefoot  over  the  flinty  pavement.  So  trifling  a  detail 
could  at  such  a  time  hardly  have  occupied  the  attention  either  of  the 
sufferer  or  of  her  husband.  To  give  it  special  notice  seems  both 
bad  art  and  bad  psychology.  The  addition  of  the  last  two  lines  is 
no  less  injurious.  The  purpose  of  the  speech  is  the  exhibition  of 
Gloucester's  fine  stoical  refusal  to  allow  personal  feeling  to  assert 
itself  in  opposition  to  the  execution  of  justice.  The  sentimental 
allusion  to  his  tear-stained  eyes,  together  with  the  lachrymose  tone 
fo  the  other  inserted  lines,  distinctly  weakens  this  impression  of  noble 
austerity.1 

The  soliloquy  of  York  at  the  end  of  Act  III,  scene  i  (2  Henry  VI) 
again  shows  the  contrast  between  the  clear-cut  method  of  Marlowe, 
bent  always  upon  the  expression  of  some  one  mood  in  its  highest 
intensity,  and  the  medleys  of  changing  emotion,  rich  in  poetical 
truisms  and  fine-wrought  figures,  which  Shakespeare  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career  loved  to  put  into  the  mouths  of  his  characters.  The 
quotation  of  the  first  lines  of  the  speech  in  the  two  versions  will 
sufficiently  illustrate  the  opposition.  Again  I  italicize  the  lines 
which  are  entirely  original  in  the  1623  version  : 
Contention,  p.  34,  1.  170  ff . : 

"  Now  York  bethink  thy  self  and  rowse  thee  vp, 
Take  time  whilst  it  is  offered  thee  so  faire, 
Least  when  thou  wouldst,  thou  canst  it  not  attaine. 
Twas  men  I  lackt,  and  now  they  give  them  me." 

1  The  warmer  play  of  feeling  in  Shakespeare's  treatment,  which  here 
results  injuriously,  is  in  other  scenes  advantageous  to  Gloucester's  character 
as  has  been  noted  already  (p.  198). 

TBANS.  CONN.  ACAD.,  Vol.  XVII.  14  JULY,  1912. 


206  C.  F    Tucker  Brooke, 

2  Henry  VI,  III,  i,  331-345 : 

"  Now,  York,  or  never,  steel  thy  fearful  thoughts, 

And  change  misdovbt  to  resolution : 

Be  that  thou  hop'st  to  be,  or  what  thou  art 

Resign  to  death :  it  is  not  worth  the  enjoying. 

Let  pale-fac'd  fear  keep  with  the  mean-born  man, 

And  find  no  harbour  in  a  royal  heart. 

Faster  than  spring-time  showers  comes  thovght  on  thovght, 

And  not  a  thought  but  thinks  on  dignity. 

My  brain,  more  busy  than  the  labouring  spider, 

Weaves  tedious  snares  to  trap  mine  enemies. 

Well,  nobles,  well ;  'tis  politicly  done, 

To  send  me  packing  with  a  host  of  men : 

I  fear  me  you  but  warm  the  starved  snake, 

Who,  cherish'd  in  your  breasts,  will  sting  your  hearts. 

'Twas  men  I  lack'd,  and  you  will  give  them  me." 

The  scene  representing  Cade's  death  (2  Henry  VI,  IV,  x)  is  expanded 
in  the  edition  of  1623,  not  only  in  bad  taste,  by  the  introduction  of 
many  lines  of  pure  bombast,  but  also  in  a  tone  which  shows  that  the 
reviser  failed  utterly  to  realize  the  heroic  quality  in  Cade  which 
Marlowe  always  brings  out.  The  following  parallels  exemplify  both 
the  intrusion  of  meaningless  rant  in  the  later  version,  and  also  the 
change  from  the  tragic  view  of  Cade  to  the  other  very  different  view 
which  regarded  him  as  a  mere  vulgar  upstart,  easily  overthrown  and 
justly  subjected  to  insult  after  death : 

Contention,  p.  55,  1.  20  f.: 

"  Eyden  .  .  .  Looke  on  me,  my  limmes  are  equall  unto  thine, 
and  every  way  as  big ;  then  hand  to  hand,  ile  combat  thee." 

2  Henry  VI,  IV,  x,  48-57 : 

"  I  den  .  .  .  Oppose  thy  steadfast-gazing  eyes  to  mine, 

See  if  thou  canst  out-face  me  with  thy  looks : 

Set  limb  to  limb,  and  thou  art  far  the  lesser; 

Thy  hand  is  but  a  finger  to  my  fist ; 

Thy  leg  a  stick  compared  with  this  truncheon  ; 

My  foot  shall  fight  with  all  the  strength  thou  hast ; 

And  if  mine  arm  be  heaved  in  the  air 

Thy  grave  is  digg'd  already  in  the  earth. 

As  for  more  words,  whose  greatness  answers  words, 

Let  this  my  sword  report  what  speech  forbears." 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  207 

Contention,  p.  55,  1.  35  f. : 

"  He  drag  him  hence,  and  with  my  sword  cut  off  his  head, 
and  beare  it  to  the  King." 

2  Henry  VI,  IV,  x,  82-89 : 

"  Die,  damned  wretch,  the  curse  of  her  that  bare  thee : 

And  as  I  thrust  thy  body  in  with  my  sword, 

So  wish  I  I  might  thrvst  thy  soul  to  hell. 

Hence  will  I  drag  thee  headlong  by  the  heels 

Unto  a  dunghill  which  shall  be  thy  grave, 

And  there  cut  off  most  ungracious  head ; 

Which  I  will  bear  in  triumph  to  the  king, 

Leaving  thy  trunk  for  crows  to  feed  upon." 

Extended  additions,  which  can  be  positively  ascribed  to  Shake- 
speare, are  less  frequent  in  3  Henry  VI,  for  in  that  play  the  alte- 
rations of  the  1623  text  consist  largely  of  mere  changes  of  single 
lines.  Where  longer  insertions  do  occur,  however,  the  relation 
between  the  old  and  new  matter  is  precisely  the  same  as  in  2  Henry  VI. 
A  good  example  of  the  Shakespearean  weakening  of  a  simple  but 
strong  speech  by  remote  reference  and  involved  rhetoric  is  found  in 
Clarence's  defiance  of  Warwick  (J  Henry  VI,  V,  i,  81  ff.) 

The  True  Tragedy  gives  the  first  part  of  this  address  as  follows : 

"  Father  of  Warwike,  know  you  what  this  meanes.  ? 

I  throw  mine  infamie  at  thee, 

I  will  not  ruinate  my  fathers  house, 

Who  gave  his  bloud  to  lime  the  stones  together, 

And  set  up  Lancaster.     Thinkest  thou 

That  Clarence  is  so  harsh  unnatural], 

To  lift  his  sword  against  his  brothers  life  ? 

And  so  proud  harted  Warwike  I  defie  thee, 

And  to  my  brothers  turne  my  blushing  cheekes." 

Instead  of  these  nine  lines,  the  1623  text  prints  nineteen.     I  italicize 
those  which  are  peculiar  to  the  later  version : 

"  Father  of  Warwick,  know  you  what  this  means  ? 

Look  here,  I  throw  my  infamy  at  thee : 

I  will  not  ruinate  my  father's  house, 

Who  gave  his  blood  to  lime  the  stones  together, 

And  set  up  Lancaster.     Why,  trow'st  thou,  Warwick. 

That  Clarence  is  so  harsh,  so  blunt,  unnatural, 

To  bend  the  fatal  instruments  of  war 


208  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

Against  his  brother  and  his  lawful  king  ? 

Perhaps  thou  wilt  object  my  holy  oath : 

To  keep  that  oath  were  more  impiety 

Than  Jephthah's,  when  he  sacrificed  his  daughter. 

I  am  so  sorry  for  my  trespass  made 

That,  to  deserve  well  at  my  brother's  hands, 

I  here  proclaim  myself  thy  mortal  foe ; 

With  resolution,  wheresoe'er  I  meet  thee — 

As  I  will  meet  thee  if  thou  stir  abroad — 

To  plague  thee  for  thy  foul  misleading  me. 

And  so,  proud-hearted  Warwick,  I  defy  thee, 

And  to  my  brother  turn  my  blushing  cheeks." 

Clearly,  the  rhetorical  question  and  the  allusion  to  Jephthah  detract 
from  the  candor  of  Clarence's  avowal  of  the  claims  of  blood.  Clearly, 
too,  the  following  diatribe  against  Warwick,  who  is  the  offended 
not  the  offending  party,  smacks'of  hollow  declamation  and  deprives 
the  speech  of  the  tone  of  manly  frankness  which  the  early  version 
gives  it. 

Throughout  this  part  of  the  play  the  reviser  robs  Warwick's 
figure  of  much  of  the  charm  which  it  has  in  the  True  Tragedy.  Even 
in  trifling  details  the  warmth  of  the  original  is  frequently  lost,  as 
where  in  recasting  Edward's  line :  "  Tis  even  so,  and  yet  you  are 
olde  Warwike  still "  (V,  i,  47;  True  Tragedy,  p.  66,  1.  36),  the 
omission  of  the  adjective  "  olde  "  takes  away  the  friendliness  of  the 
king's  implied  offer  of  reconciliation.  The  death  of  Warwick  is 
very  strongly  and  pathetically  treated  in  the  True  Tragedy.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  scene  (V,  ii)  is  rather  spoiled  in  the  revision. 
Whereas  Marlowe  has  Warwick  enter  alone,  wounded,  with  the  words  : 

"  Ah,  who  is  nie  ?     Come  to  me,  friend  or  foe, 
And  tell  me  who  is  victor,  Yorke  or  Warwike  ?  " 

Shakespeare,  in  the  interests  of  stage  effect,  has  Edward  himself 
drag  in  the  fallen  warrior  and  speak  four  heartless  lines  over  his 
body  (V,  ii,  1  ff.) : 

"  So,  lie  thou  there :  die  thou,  and  die  our  fear ; 
For  Warwick  was  a  bug  that  fear'd  us  ah1 
Now  Montague,  sit  fast ;  I  seek  for  thee, 
That  Warwicks'  bones  may  keep  thine  company." 

The  new  lines  given  to  \Varwick  in  this  scene  are  all  superfluous, 
and  the  most  important  added  speech,  conceived  in  a  tone  of 
weak  sentimentality,  is,  I  think,  glaringly  unbecoming  (11.  33—39) : 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  209 

"  Ah !     Montague, 

If  thov  be  here,  sweet  brother,  take  my  hand, 
And  with  thy  lips  keep  in  my  soul  awhile 
Thou  lovs't  me  not ;  for,  brother,  if  thou  didst, 
Thy  tears  would  wash  this  cold  congealed  blood 
That  glues  my  lips  and  will  not  let  me  speak. 
Come  quickly,  Montague,  or  I  am  dead." 

A  good  final  example  of  the  extent  to  which  the  immature  Shake- 
speare sometimes  distorted  the  natural  words  of  Marlowe's  speakers 
in  his  ambition  to  work  out  an  elaborate  tissue  of  metaphor  and 
allusion,  appears  in  the  revised  version  of  Queen  Margaret's  address 
to  her  followers  in  J  Henry  VI,  V,  iv.  In  the  True  Tragedy,  this 
speech  consists  of  eleven  lines,  all  quite  appropriate  to  the  occasion : 

"  Welcome  to  England,  my  loving  friends  of  France, 
And  welcome  Summerset,  and  Oxford  too. 
Once  more  have  we  spread  our  sailes  abroad, 
And  though  our  tackling  be  almost  consumde, 
And  Warwike  as  our  maine  mast  overthrowne, 
Yet  warlike  Lords  raise  you  that  sturdie  post, 
That  beares  the  sailes  to  bring  vs  vnto  rest, 
And  Ned  and  I  as  willing  Pilots  should 
For  once  with  carefull  mindes  gvide  on  the  sterne, 
To  beare  vs  through  that  dangerous  gulfe 
That  heretofore  hath  swallowed  vp  our  friends  " 

This  passage  served  only  as  a  foundation  for  the  reviser,  who 
rewrote  the  speech,  nearly  quadrupling  its  length  and  elaborating 
every  suggested  figure  to  such  a  degree  that  the  feelings  of  the  ill- 
starred  queen  are  hidden  beneath  the  profusion  of  ornament.  This 
is  the  speech  as  printed  in  the  Folio : 

"  Great  lords,  wise  men  ne'er  sit  and  wail  their  loss, 

But  cheerly  seek  how  to  redress  their  harms. 

What  though  the  mast  be  now  blowne  overboard, 

The  cable  broke,  the  holding  anchor  lost, 

And  half  our  sailors  swallowed  in  the  flood ; 

Yet  lives  our  pilot  still :  is't  meet  that  he 

Should  leave  the  helm  and  like  a  fearful  lad 

With  tearful  eyes,  add  water  to  the  sea, 

And  give  more  strength  to  that  which  hath  too  much; 

Whiles  in  his  moan  the  ship  splits  on  the  rock, 

Which  industry  and  courage  might  have  saved  ? 


210  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke, 

Ah !    what  a  shame  ?    ah,  what  a  fault  were  this. 

Say,  Warwick  was  our  anchor ;  what  of  that  ? 

And  Montague  our  top-mast ;  what  of  him  ? 

Our  slaughter'd  friends  the  tackles ;  what  of  those  ? 

Why,  is  not  Oxford  here  another  anchor  ? 

And  Somerset,  another  goodly  mast  ? 

The  friends  of  France  our  shrouds  and  tacklings  ?. 

And,  though  unskilful,  why  not  Ned  and  I 

For  once  allow'd  the  skilful  pilot's  charge  ? 

We  will  not  from  the  helm,  to  sit  and  weep, 

But  keep  our  course,  though  the  rough  wind  say  no, 

From  shelves  and  rocks  that  threaten  us  with  wrack. 

As  good  to  chide  the  waves  as  speak  them  fair. 

And  what  is  Edward  but  a  rvthless  sea  ? 

What  Clarence  but  a  quicksand  of  deceit  ? 

And  Richard  but  a  ragged  fatal  rock  ? 

AH  these  the  enemies  to  our  poor  bark. 

Say  you  can  swim ;  alas !    'tis  but  a  while : 

Tread  on  the  sand;  why,  there  you  quickly  sink: 

Bestride  the  rock ;  the  tide  will  wash  you  off, 

Or  else  you  famish :  that's  a  three-fold  death. 

This  speak  I,  lords,  to  let  you  understand, 

In  case  some  one  of  you  would  fly  from  us, 

That  there's  no  hop'd-for  mercy  with  the  brothers 

More  than  with  ruthless  waves,  with  sands  and  rocks. 

Why,  courage,  then ;  what  cannot  be  avoided 

'Twere  childish  weakness  to  lament  or  fear." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  injustice  is  done  to  Shakespeare  in  the 
study  of  these  parallels.  The  reviser,  working  upon  material  so 
homogeneous  and  so  firmly  moulded,  was  necessarily  at  a  disadvantage. 
His  failures  to  preserve  the  tone  and  purpose  of  the  original  quickly 
rise  to  convict  him.  But  where  he  may  have  succeeded  in  main- 
taining or  improving  the  decorum  of  Marlowe's  conceptions,  his 
additions  are  less  easily  distinguished  from  the  earlier  matter.  Cer- 
tain details  in  which  the  adapter  was  able  to  broaden  the  range  of 
character  interest  of  the  original  plays  have  been  pointed  out.  On 
the  whole,  however,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  the  justice  of 
the  impression,  based  on  many  careful  readings  and  comparisons 
of  the  different  texts,  that  in  spite  of  probable  curtailments  and 
corruptions,  the  Marlovian  versions  preserved  in  the  Contention  and 
True  Tragedy  are  intrinsically  better  plays  than  those  which  resulted 


The  Authorship  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  211 

from  the  Shakespearean  alteration — more  powerful  in  plot-interest 
and  more  impressive  in  psychological  portraiture.  At  the  period 
during  which  these  plays  seem  to  been  written  and  revised — be- 
tween 1590  and  1592 — Marlowe  was  undoubtedly  a  maturer  and 
a  more  effective  dramatist  than  Shakespeare.  The  very  traits  upon 
which  Shakespeare's  later  unapproachable  superiority  was  founded 
— his  broad  impartial  view  of  human  character  and  his  wealth  of 
poetic  fancy — make  his  earlier  style  appear  diffuse  and  muddy  in 
contrast  with  the  forceful  clarity  of  Marlowe's  more  restricted 
outlook. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


OEC  191949 

FEB     7  RECO 
APR  1  2  1955 


a 


• 


RETDBOOK 

REfii 


JUL2  6 


LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


4 


DO  NOT   REMOVE 
THIS  BOOK  CARDS 


University  Research  Library 


AA    000354578 


